


Zoom, A Tim Allen Film: Director's Cut

by Monk_os



Category: Zoom (2006)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:53:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23502655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Monk_os/pseuds/Monk_os
Summary: This is an edited version of the book: the film. If you want to avoid experiencing my pain, read this version of the book instead. The idea with this edit is that I keep in all necessary/running jokes, and remove any garbage that may I don’t like, and re edit the dialogue a little to make it enjoyable.Most director's cuts are longer than the originals, but this one is shorter. Why? The original was a slave to the garbage dialogue that ran through most of it. It has lost, in my opinion, a little bit of charm that the original had, many little one shot jokes, dance breaks, and moments of genuine pain from me were lost, though perhaps it is for the best. In time, I'd like to make one definitive version of the book, showing all edits, but that's a lot of effort for such an elaborate shitpost.Hope you enjoy.





	Zoom, A Tim Allen Film: Director's Cut

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Zoom, A Tim Allen Film](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16978683) by [Monk_os](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Monk_os/pseuds/Monk_os). 



“The Zenith Team,” said a voice on the television. Tim Allen sat back, cigarette hanging from his bottom lip, looking down at the crack pipe on his coffee table.

“Five young superheroes who fought to protect the world from evil,” Tim Allen chuckled at the old tape. He stood, peeling his sweat soaked back off the ripped leather couch. He knelt and picked up the crack pipe.

“Led by Captimallen and his brother Concussion, the team saved many lives. Team Zenith,” Tim Allen stood once again and glanced around the room for any more drug paraphernalia.

“Oh, and with the help of their sidekick, Dr. Grant. The government sought to enhance the team's powers using Gamma-13 radiation,” Tim Allen gave up on the crack pipe and snatched a needle from the broken table beside the couch. He took off his belt, tied it around his arm, and looked down at his veins.

“Timallen got faster and stronger, but the Gamma turned Concussion to the dark side. He turned on his own team. Timallen lost his powers and his brother,” Tim Allen winced as heroine shot into him, and the needle snapped off in his arm.

“Home improvement grunt,” he said, slowly losing consciousness.

Dr. Grant carefully pulled the needle out of Tim Allen’s arm with shaking hands. It had been some time since he had dealt with Tim Allen’s drug abuse. His patient’s eyes widened as he realized that his suicide attempt had failed.

“Grant? What the hell are you doing?" gurgled Tim Allen. He tried to sit up, but the combined force of blood loss and heroin dropped him back onto his kitchen table.

“I’m dealing with a self centered druggy who won’t sit still. Your house is a goddamn mess, you’re lucky you didn’t pass out and hit your head. Listen, we’ve been tracking a pan-dimensional anomaly that seems to be moving toward our time-space continuum," mumbled Dr. Grant, covered in his old co-worker’s blood. His hair was nearly gone now, although he had had a full head of hair when he had last seen Tim Allen. His wireframe glasses slipped down his nose and he roughly pushed them back up with his wrist. He dropped the needle onto the ground and snatched a spoon from the oven. As the makeshift medical instrument cauterized his wound, Tim Allen tried to think of a witty comeback.

“Dr. Grant, I speak Greek, not geek," was what he meant to say, but it came out as a gurgled moan. Grant sighed. He had been losing his hair ever since Tim Allen had left, and now he was going to pull the last of it out by the roots.

“Tim Allen, we need you back. Concussion is still alive, and he's on his way out of the void prison you put him in," Dr. Grant screamed his last sentence into Tim Allen’s face, who winced at the implication. He always loved bringing pain to this terrible, terrible man. Tim Allen passed out again.

The ambulance had arrived ten minutes ago, but the paramedics had only just now piled Tim Allen and Dr. Grant into the back.

“He was completely destroyed, whacked. It’s a miracle he didn’t overdose. I had to cauterize the hole I made to retrieve the needle," Dr. Grant said to the paramedic, trying to explain the bloody mess that was Tim Allen’s arm.

“I understand, but he doesn’t have insurance, and that wound alone will cost a lot of money, and that’s not even counting the drugs we’re going to have to give him,” the paramedic replied sternly. As he said this, Dr. Grant let loose a primal scream.

“The time has come!” he shrieked, grabbing an oxygen hose from the wall of the ambulance. The paramedic was thrown to the ground by the force of the doctor. Grant wrapped the hose around the paramedic’s neck and tightened it until his eyes bugged out of his head. Grant shook all over, spit flecked with blood spewed out of his mouth and down his chin. After the paramedic stopped moving, Grant stood and began to stomp his head in. At first, there was a loud banging, as the paramedic’s head would bounce up and slam onto the metal floor. However, Grant’s stomps slowly began to muffle as he broke down the bones of the paramedic’s face. Counting was Dr. Grant’s trigger word. After Grant had cleaned off his shoes, he climbed into the cab and stabbed the driver with his handy icepick. Grant loved that icepick.

“I'm reactivating the Zenith Program. You’re going to need to find some kids," said Dr. Grant over the phone. He stood next to his somewhat dilapidated ambulance, leaning his weight on the side of it as three or four gas station attendants scuttled around, fighting over who got to fill up the tank. On the other end of the phone was General Larraby, Grant’s boss and lover, who was furiously looking for types of children they could use for their experiments.

“Look for misfits, outcasts, weirdos," suggested Grant, and Larraby grunted in agreement. One of the attendants shuffled by clutching a small Manila folder.

“Give me that file," screeched Grant, sinking his icepick into the attendant’s shoulder. The attendant squealed like a pig, dropping the folder. Grant snatched the it off the ground, wiped his icepick on the back of the attendant, and returned to his phone call.

“Timallen's the only one who can train them. He’s in critical condition, so we’ll need to be picked up earlier than expected," Grant commanded his submissive boss. He closed his eyes and thought about Larraby’s bald head and gross wrinkles filling with hot wax. It had been too long since they had really spent time together.

“You know he won't cooperate. Tie him down or drug him before he becomes a liability” vomited an indignant Larraby. He was unsure about the technical ability of his special strike force in their ability to subdue Tim Allen and put him in those cute fuzzy pink handcuffs that looked so nice on Larraby himself.

“I don’t think that’ll be a problem. He’s already pumped full of drugs as it is. I’ll see you in Long Beach. Bye. Hey you, come here," slurped Grant to the wounded attendant. He had noticed a few of the other attendants eyeing the wound in their companion’s shoulder hungrily. While he may not have had the folds of fat, nor the stern, disapproving brow, the attendant would have to be Larraby’s replacement until the choppers got to the rendezvous point. Grant hoisted the attendant through the window into the front seat of the ambulance and instructed him to drive. Then he tossed the corpses of the paramedic and the driver out to the remaining attendants as payment. Dealing with gas station attendants was always a pain. You just have to hope that you have raw meat on you for the subhuman attendants that work at all gas stations.

The attendant, now bestowed with the name Skinbo by his sugar daddy Grant, sped along the streets of Long Beach towards an intersection large enough for Larraby’s dual purpose sex dungeon and attack helicopter, called the _Cockter,_ to land. Skinbo’s first time driving was going quite well, and he had already racked up three or four vehicle kills (depending on if you count the pregnant woman as one or two). He was almost fluorescent white, like most gas station attendants, with a large forehead, beady black eyes, and a wide mouth. Skinbo gazed down the road towards a woman crossing the street.

“There's a car coming, Lady!” screamed someone on the sidewalk as Skinbo plowed through the woman, marking his fourth or fifth victim that ride. The man on the sidewalk, seething with anger at the reckless driving of the ambulance, decided to disembowel whoever was in the back. He flung open the doors with the rage of 1000 white knights. He glared at the inside of the ambulance, walls dripping with at least three people’s blood, Grant standing straight to attention gazing lustfully into the sky. He raised one yellow finger and pointed into the sky. Almost immediately, the inside of the man's head spewed out across the inside of the ambulance, making four people’s blood on the walls and ground.

“Disgusting," spurted Grant, wiping blood off his face. The _Cockter_ containing the sniper drew closer. Larraby jumped out before the helicopter even landed, rushing to his lover’s side. He was a large man, he had once been muscular, you could tell, but years behind a desk had added a layer of fat to the chiselled face and army-ready body. He was still strong, mind you, only fat. You wouldn’t think that there are types of bald until you saw him, for he was the most bald of all. He was amazingly bald; not necessarily all over his body, as he still had quite hairy arms and even hairier places that only Grant could properly describe. Rather, it was the kind of baldness that would make the sun reflect off the top of his head at certain times of day and would have blinded you if you looked for too long.

“Yeah, you're sure you're okay, huh?” he said, feigning indifference despite his throbbing heart.

“That guy almost killed me," said Grant, still in shock from not being able to use his Larraby replacement

Once Tim Allen had been heaved into the chopper, the crew had finished their ritual landing orgy, and the ambulance had been attached to the bottom to be taken for use by Grant, the _Cockter_ took off.

“Watch out for the grease," said Grant as Larraby made Skinbo’s acquaintance by sucking his fingers, which were covered in gasoline and grease and blood.

“Should have told you about those grease spots," Grant reiterated, after Larraby had finished throwing up from ingesting gasoline. Tim Allen’s eyes fluttered.

“Come on, get up," Grant ordered the waking comedian.

“Grant?” Tim Allen mumbled.

“Hello, Timallen," Larraby squelched.

“It's Tim Allen," replied Tim Allen indignantly.

“Okay, Tim Allen," Larraby was disappointed.

“It's good to see you’re feeling better," Grant said, as Tim Allen sat up and turned to face him.

“We’re starting a new zenith team.”

“You can't be serious," Tim Allen said, shocked. Skinbo almost fell out of the helicopter with how serious everything was.

“We are serious, Mr. Tim Allen," replied a shriveled raisin of a woman, whose head and extremities barely stuck out of an enormous dress. She had been sitting silently in the corner of the chopper, unnoticed until she spoke.

“Why is the green dress talking?” Tim Allen was in quite a bad mood.

“I'm a psychologist," said the raisin, wrinkling her face even more than what Tim Allen could comprehend with his lizard brain.

“That’s Holloway, she works with me," Grant had decided to take Holloway as his responsibility. Some pains are too great to bear, and Grant would not wish Miss Holloway onto his worst enemy, despite the fact that he totally did wish Miss Holloway onto Tim Allen, who was his worst enemy, with the exception of maybe children. In Grant’s defense, he didn’t know the full power of this raisin woman, and he was trying to save Tim Allen from as much of her influence as possible. While it was her personal goal to vore the entire universe, her odd powers could be exploited. Hopefully Tim Allen would never have to deal with Holloway's vorarephilic tendencies. Nobody deserved that.

Quoth the raisin “You're the only superhero left."

Tim Allen was somewhat disturbed at the fact that his secret ability to put glass in his eyelids without flinching had been revealed to this tiny woman, although he was flattered that she would consider it a super power.

“Somebody's been giving you the wrong information. So, if you'll excuse me, I got work to do," Tim Allen replied, hoping the woman would not use his hobby against him. He stood and began to walk out of the open helicopter door. Larraby snatched Tim Allen's collar and sat him down in his chair. He gleefully strapped Tim Allen's mangled arm to the raisin woman with the blindfold he always kept in his pocket in case of surprise visits from his mother.

“We're here to take you back, not to invite you back," squirted Dr. Grant menacingly.

“And I’ve given authorization to use whatever means necessary," said Larraby, stroking his prized anal beads.

An old, disgusting woman puttered down the street, clutching a bag of candy and some gloves she had stolen from the mall.

“Trick or treat," she creaked to a tree she mistook for a house.

“Here you go, sweetie," she imagined the tree saying as she plucked moss and leaves off the lower branches.

“Trick or treat," she crooned again, lifting herself onto a limb and crouching like a harpy, surveying the area for little boys. Her white curly hair fell down from beneath her pink cowboy hat. She curled and uncurled her fingers at the sight of two boys walking down the road holding precious bags of limes.

“Thank you," she tapped out in Morse code against the trunk of the tree. The boys drew closer and closer, until they were directly underneath her.

“Thanks a lot," she screeched as she swung down and kicked one boy in the chest, sending him flying. She snatched the bag of limes from the ground and began to stride off down the road. The other boy ran up and tried to grab his friend’s limes from the woman.

“Give it here, Howdy Doo-Doo," he said, ripping the limes from the woman's clutches.

“Bully!" cried the woman, uncurling her hands and swiping at the boy’s eyes. He screamed as the woman scratched and tore at his face. She plunged her hands deep into the boy’s chest, ripping out chunks of skin and bones to shove into her open, gaping maw.

“Thank you," she gulped between chunks of flesh. The woman tore through the child with an amazing strength, ripping and tearing and chewing down. As she consumed, the neighborhood began to notice the carnage in the street.

“I'll take that," said the woman, clutching the bag of limes close to her chest.

“She's so weird," said a housewife to another.

“Freak," said the other.

“That was a good one," replied the first, realizing that her description of the woman was at least two words too long.

The cafeteria was full of teenagers. Summer, the anime cat girl, scowled. She hated every last one of these kids, but she hated Kendra Rose Montagna most of all. Kendra Rose Montagna was her arch nemesis, an evil being of pure light energy that was also really self-centered and a bit of a dick sometimes. Kendra Rose Montagna was rude to Summer and her friends in the hallways and called her names like Smummer and Weeb Bait. Today, however, Summer would get her sweet revenge. The pipe bomb she had hidden in Kendra Rose Montagna’s lunch pizza would serve that purpose well.

“Oh, my gosh," said one of Kendra Rose Montagna’s friends, pulling the cheesy explosive out of the pizza crust. Summer sensed that the bomb had been discovered and flicked a switch on a remote control. The blast flattened the table and disintegrated at least 5 kids.

“What just happened?” yelled a teacher, running in after hearing the blast and the screaming.

“How does my hair look?” Kendra Rose Montagna said, her ethereal form undamaged by the physical blast.

After the staff realized that none of the kids killed in the blast were particularly popular compared to the unharmed Kendra Rose Montagna, the day resumed its normal routine. Dylan, a spider enthusiast and life-sized living doll made of wet paper mache, dozed off in class for the fifth time that hour.

“Dylan. Perhaps you'd like to come up and finish Newton's equation?" said the teacher menacingly. Dylan snapped to attention and spewed a stream of water onto a nearby student.

“I think Newton can finish his own equation," snarked Dylan, folding and unfolding a complex origami dog.

“Now, Dylan," the teacher commanded.

“Yes," Dylan replied, tossing the dog onto his desk and walking up to the board. He took two spiders out of his pocket and smashed them onto the board with the power of an angry leopard being crushed by a trash compactor.

Lard-Butt cracked two more ducks in the head with his big wooden board.

“Check it out. Lard-butt's going to snap the board in half," said Wint, Lard-Butt’s friend and insurance broker. Lard-Butt gripped the sides of the board and ripped it through the air at the final standing duck. The duck's head was obliterated almost instantly, but the force of the wind resistance snapped the board anyway. Lard-Butt dropped the board to the ground and picked up the ducks and began to swallow them whole. There would be no duck parade today.

Tim Allen shakily stepped out of the _Cockter,_ which sat on the heli-pad of Area 52, a secure facility in Nevada. The _Cockter_ began to rumble with the massive orgy, which always took place within its cabin post-landing.

“Thank you, Grant, for bringing me back to a place I've been avoiding for the last 30 years," he snarled, doing a little dance to show his displeasure.

“You should be happy we brought you here. It’s the government’s professional opinion that you are a hot boy, which is why we’re paying you $500,000, cash" Grant said. He pulled out a little dart gun and shot Tim Allen in the arm to reiterate his point.

“You know you could've just said that instead of shooting me with a dart," Tim Allen slurred passively. A flurry of yellow fabric erupted from a shed to Tim Allen’s left. The raisin woman rolled to the feet of the drug addict, actor, and comedian.

“Mr. Tim Allen, I can't tell you how happy I am that you've come aboard," Miss Holloway gurgled, her yellow dress floating around her like clouds of mustard gas.

“How the hell did you get out of the orgy?" Tim Allen said, confused. Holloway had been sucked into the middle of the orgy pile when they landed, and he hadn’t seen her get out of the heap of human flesh, let alone go into the decrepit shed that sat beside him.

“Do you have an inner-ear problem or something?” Holloway squeaked, removing her otoscope from a passing fold of yellow dress and advancing on Tim Allen’s head. Tim Allen backed away from the tiny woman with the medical equipment.

“Tim Allen," chided Grant. He thought he had taught Tim Allen to understand the benefits of occasional check-ups, but he had, evidently, not drilled it into Tim Allen's head enough.

“I have every issue of _Captimallen And His Amazing Team_ , most of them still in their original plastic sleeves," crackled the tiny raisin woman, pulling at her hair as she spoke. Grant hurriedly pulled Tim Allen away from the small woman, as her floaty yellow dress had begun to trigger Tim Allen’s WWI PTSD, or shellshock as they called it back then.

Tim Allen, in an almost catatonic state from his shellshock, was ushered into a control room and squirted with water until he awoke from his delusions. He looked around, dazed. Through a pane of one-way glass there were 9 children and an old woman tied to chairs with soldiers behind them. Grant ushered the woozy tool man to a microphone.

“We have assembled a group of 10 special candidates. The extent of their abilities is still unknown, like it was when your team arrived," explained Grant, seeing that Tim Allen had no clue what he was doing.

“We wanted your help in choosing the ones with the best potential for a new Zenith team," Larraby added, catching through a series of eye movements from Grant that Holloway was to change into her green dress at the request of Mr. Tim Allen.

“Well, they'd better be able to do some mind-blowing stuff," Tim Allen said, mildly annoyed at the prospect of having to do work to earn money. One of the kids had begun to tear up but was trying to hide it. A soldier pushed her chair forward out of the line.

“What is this? She's blinking fast," Tim Allen said, his sociopathy not allowing him to recognize emotion.

“She was better in the audition," Grant said as Tim Allen gave the order to execute the girl. The soldier dragged the girl out of the line and tipped her against the wall. He brought his rifle to her head and blew her brains out onto the wall behind the line.

“I am a little cooler," said the next boy in line. His skin was soggy and pale, with smeared black ink dripping down onto the floor. Out of his mouth crawled a spider.

“Oh, dude!” Tim Allen yelped in disgust. More spiders began to flow out of the boy’s mouth, crawling over the boy until he was completely covered in a writhing black mat.

“Now you see him, now you don't," Grant said, elbowing Tim Allen, who was throwing up in a bucket.

“How you doing?” Grant asked the vomit covered Trump supporter.

“Pass the hand sanitizer, please," Tim Allen gasped between heaves. Grant tossed the bottle to a guard, who left the room. The paper mache boy was removed, sedated, and put onto a table for analysis after the interview concluded.

After Tim Allen had recovered somewhat from his experience, he called the next kid forward.

“A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P…” said the kid.

“Stop that. You're singing the alphabet. That's not a power," Tim Allen said, turning and glaring at Grant. The interviews had been a total disaster so far.

“And your voice is average, it's not super," Tim Allen continued as the young boy was tipped against the wall next to the corpse.

“Please, let me go home," the kid screamed as the rifle barrel was placed on the back of his head.

“Can we get another table for the next successful child?" Grant commanded, slyly slipping a roofie into Tim Allen’s drink. He had a good feeling about this next girl.

“Right away," said the soldier after cleaning blood and bone off his rifle. Tim Allen began to question the next girl that had been moved forward. She was a cute anime girl with the big tata and cute neko ears ^UwU^. I hate myself so much.

“I’m a telepath," said the girl to Tim Allen, “It’s like mind reading. Like, I know that the old gay guy just spiked a drink.”

Tim Allen looked up at Grant, who grinned, winked. Tim Allen pushed his water away from him.

“That’s an ok power," Tim Allen said, and reluctantly gave the ok on the telepath. Grant was disappointed that Tim Allen hadn’t been more enthusiastic. The girl was sedated and put next to the boy and the next kid was pushed forward with great difficulty. He was thicc, and sported a bowl cut and a pair of spiderman themed sunglasses way too small for his head. Lard-Butt had already come up with his superhero name.

“I'm Jupiter the Gas Giant," he said, grinning.

“What?” Tim Allen asked, taken aback by the boy’s obliviousness to the murders which he had just seen take place. Lard-Butt beckoned the guard to him. With a few strange movements, he bit and chewed at the ropes binding him to the chair. With an odd grace, he pounced on the guard, unhinging his jaw and gulping the man's head, helmet and all, into his gaping throat.

“God damn, now that’s talent,” Tim Allen said, impressed at the speed of the boy. He had already finished the soldier, as well as the bodies and chairs at the back, and had begun to eat the other contestants.

“It's so cool," Tim Allen said to Grant, watching the consumption of the children. His job was being done for him, any survivors would be inducted into the training program. He left the room with Grant in tow.

After the carnage had died down and soldiers gassed the remaining four subjects, Tim Allen was approached by Holloway, and Larraby.

“Miss Holloway will introduce you to our new trainees,” Larraby said to the tool man and Trump supporter, who blinked and stood silently for a moment.

“Okay," Tim Allen finally said, his voice weary from the stress of the day. Larraby showed him a register of kids, 6 of which were now crossed out roughly in red crayon. The four that were left were as follows:

Summer “Smummer” Jones: telepath/empath/cute anime neko girl

Dylan “Spiders” West: spiders

Tucker “Lard-Butt” Williams: eats things

Cindy “Old” Collins: old looking 6-year-old/hella stronk/gilf material

Tim Allen nodded slowly, though he barely understood the words in front of him.

“That is getting so old," Summer said, pointing to a moldy apple in the corner of the room that even Lard-Butt refused to eat. There were only four of them left: Summer managed to convince Lard-Butt not to eat her because she was anorexic and too bony to be tasty, Dylan produced a steady stream of spiders to satisfy the glutton’s hunger, and an old woman who had torn a section off the wall, who Lard-Butt wouldn’t even go near. Tim Allen creaked open the door and threw Skinbo in to act as a human shield. Skinbo promptly swallowed a pool ball and began dry heave. After a couple seconds of not hearing screaming from inside the room, Tim Allen opened the door. Once he was through the door, Holloway exploded out into the room from behind him in order to be seen by the children

“Children, I would like to formally introduce you to a very great man, Mr. Tim Allen Tim Allen," Holloway announced as she entered the room, Larraby and Grant scurrying around behind her. A spider crawled out of Dylan’s face with some difficulty, and Tim Allen stifled a dry heave. A piece of corn fell out of his nose.

“Sorry. I don't remember eating that," he muttered, kicking the kernel away into a pile of organs.

“Huh? Formerly great man?” Lard-Butt questioned Holloway, having misheard her opening words.

“Suck my cock you arrogant little bastard," Tim Allen spurted back at both the kid and Larraby for choosing such trash children.

“Mr. Tim Allen is uniquely qualified to be your new instructor. He was one of the members of the original Zenith Team," Holloway said, trying to defend the drug addict of her dreams. The exploits of the Zenith Team were open to the public, though their tragic end had been edited heavily. Tim Allen opened his mouth to speak, but the hideous old woman skittered out from behind a piece of sheet metal that she had torn from the wall.

“Oh god, what a gross old woman,” Tim Allen yelled, nearly falling over from the sight of her.

“That’s a little rude," Summer scolded.

“Don't be a jerk, man," Lard-Butt said.

“What? She’s a demon person! God! Kill it with fire!” screamed Tim Allen, flying into a fit of rage.

“Children, be nice to Tim Allen," Holloway said, wagging a finger at the kids for angering her only love.

“Sorry," Lard-Butt said sarcastically, sitting in a corner.

“Alright! Everyone acquainted with Tim Allen? Good, then everyone out of the room, meeting adjourned. Holloway, bring the surviving children to their quarters,” Larraby bellowed, noticing that Tim Allen’s presence with the children was causing problems.

“Tim Allen is definitely Concussion’s target, sir. The center of the dimensional probing is following Timallen here, from Long Beach," Grant said to Larraby, who was watching Skinbo do a little dance through one-way glass.

“We've finally found something that Tim Allen excels at. Being the bait. If you can't get those kids combat-ready in time, you'll have to dose them with Gamma-13 to enhance their power. And if we get another one that goes crazy like Concussion, it’s on Tim Allen’s head," Larraby replied coldly. Grant had never seen him so tense. He massaged the general’s neck and back sensually, but the general remained firm.

“I told you. We will not be dosing the children," Grant said, draping himself over Larraby’s shoulders.

“We might have to reconsider that," Larraby told Grant, softening a little to his lover’s advances.

“Put a little pep in their step," he said, winking.

“Or drop them off at the dentist and have them x-rayed 200 or 300 times," said Tim Allen, walking in on the lovers’ squabble to get attention.

“We will be a lot worse off if one of them goes nuts on us. We can’t deal with both them and Concussion," Grant said, ignoring Tim Allen’s interruption. He pretended to slip and fall, making Larraby catch him.

“What about my sensitive condition?” Tim Allen said, trying to get a rise out of anyone.

“Have a little faith, hon," Grant cooed to his lover.

“Are you done? I left a little pause there in case you wanted to slip and fall again," Tim Allen said, mad that the gay couple was not giving him attention.

“Oh, Grant, what am I doing here?” Larraby said, finally caving in to his lover’s requests. Grant kissed Larraby tenderly and turned to Tim Allen.

“Ok, Tim Allen, I hear you. I’ve got something I’ve been meaning to show you, actually.”

“Wow," Tim Allen said as Grant opened a huge metal door. Before him stood a large yellow suit, its matte finish and rough surface covered in a thin layer of dust. Metal scales covered the suit, and they would have allowed Tim Allen to move at his top speed, if he had worn it before he lost his powers. Grant smiled sadly.

“I made that suit for you. Too bad you never got a chance to wear it," he said. Tim Allen looked at him softly. For just a second, Grant and Tim Allen felt at home.

“Don’t disappoint me,” Grant said, smiling melancholically before leaving Tim Allen alone.

“Wow," Tim Allen said again after Grant had left. He smiled genuinely for the first time in two weeks.

It was three in the morning. Grant had called an emergency meeting of the science team.

“These brain scans do not correlate with the children's test results," Grant said. He had his head in his hands. Holloway, Skinbo, and several other members of the science team stood around their distressed leader. Larraby stood in the corner, eyebrows knit, hand on his forehead.

“They are subconsciously suppressing their full abilities," Holloway explained croakily.

“We don’t have enough time to get these kids ready, I say dose them. The threat is too close,” Larraby said from the corner of the room.

“Sir, it might help if I knew what the threat was," Holloway said back, turning to the general. Grant and Larraby were the only people who knew about the threat in full detail. Tim Allen burst through the door holding the prunes that he was supposed to bring for Larraby's juice cleanse an hour before the meeting

“Sorry I'm late. I didn't get the memo. I heard something about ‘threat.’ What exactly…”

“Not a good time, Tim Allen. This meeting is restricted," Grant said coldly. His kind demeanour from earlier was beginning to deteriorate. He had hoped to spend more time with Larraby, but the crisis had made them both irritable and busy. Larraby only scowled.

“Well, I think maybe a big bowl of prunes might turn that frown upside down, General," Tim Allen said, holding the prunes high above his head.

“Can someone call in some guards to take him? I can’t deal with this right now,” Grant groaned. Tim Allen turned to leave

“The General’s counting on these prunes for his cleanse, though,” Tim Allen said, almost to the door. Grant stood, drawing his icepick. With one swift motion, he ripped out the throat of the closest scientist to him.

“Scatter," Larraby said, dodging a swing of the icepick. Tim Allen ducked behind a table as Grant ripped open another scientist's ribcage. Holloway rolled up beside him.

“Holloway, what were you arguing about with Larraby?” Tim Allen questioned the woman. Her face wrinkled and sagged.

“Tim Allen, it's late," she said, trying to slink off to her quarters to avoid the rampaging scientist.

“I can't work well if I don’t ever know what’s happening," Tim Allen said, trying to appeal to the human nature he assumed was hidden somewhere within the grey folds of the woman’s skin.

“You know, when they started talking about bringing you in…” Holloway said, disappoint dripping from her voice. In her hand was a tiny Timallen figurine. Tim Allen sat, confused, listening the woman.

“Yeah?”

“...I was ecstatic. Finally, I would meet the only real superhero left in the world," she licked her lips, but her face seemed sad. She began to rip the toy apart in her shaking hands. She retrieved a few more figures of the other members of the old Zenith team, ripping at them slowly, until only the Concussion figure was unharmed.

“Would you let that superhero stuff go, please?” Tim Allen said, concerned that the woman would have some sort of episode.

“A hero who would fight for justice at all costs," she continued ripping, “I was a really lonely, kind of weird child."

“Well, at least you know you've grown out of that," Tim Allen chuckled nervously. Grant had begun to tire himself out after disembowelling five scientists.

“And the only comfort I found was in reading about you," Holloway said, seeming to channel her inner Collins, creaking out her sentence with a menacing hiss. She held all the remains of the toys in one hand and plucked the plastic Timallen head off the figure. Her thumb and forefinger crushed the head with ease in front of the comedian’s face.

“That's because you're out of your mind," Tim Allen said, stumbling back, “You gotta stop with this comic book stuff."

“You know, the first thing you said to me was that you're not a real superhero."

“Right."

“Well, I didn't believe you then. But congratulations, because you have convinced me,” she groaned, looking at the scared husk of a man, “You don’t really have any powers at all. You’re cowering here just like me."

“You don’t want me to cower? Fine, I guess I won’t cower," Tim Allen said, vaulting over the table that he had been taking cover under. He scrambled out of the room, disregarding Grant, the bodies, and even his own name written in a scrawl across the hallway wall. Holloway looked after the fleeing man. Maybe he would be useful, but it was disappointing that he had no superpowers of his own.

“Hey, that was a good meeting last night, Grant," said Michael Anthony, the head of Isolative Security. He had hoped for a promotion after this, but it seemed more likely that Larraby would consider him too useful an asset to send away. Maybe he could get a raise if he did well enough. It wouldn’t be worth it, but it wasn’t like he could quit.

“Yeah, it was cool. It was just a simple staff meeting," said a voice from somewhere else inside the room. Anthony whipped around, shining his flashlight over four mangled bodies from the science team. Someone must have said “counting”. His flashlight came to rest on a huddled figure in the corner. He breathed a sigh of relief. As long as he could see Grant, he could keep his gun on him, and shoot if necessary.

“That's what I thought, simple staff meeting, based on the way I was shoved in here," he said, nodding back to the hallway behind him. The rest of the security team had almost had to drag him to the lab. They all sat, cowering in the back of the hall. Grant couldn’t see him, but he knew that the rest of the team would, so his comments were more for them. He reached out and touched the figure. It slumped and swung from its head, which was attached to the wall. Anthony stepped back and spun around. There were only three bodies on the floor, and a trail of blood leading down a hallway. Anthony sighed. This would be a long morning.

“So, where we going?" asked Skinbo.

“We've got combat training tomorrow. We've got to get you into some protective gear," Tim Allen said, annoyed at the fact that it had been left to him to arm the gas station attendant. Evidently, Grant and the head Isolative officer were locked in a firefight in the science section, Larraby was busy with an insurrection plot, and Holloway got the kids. Skinbo reached his hand up to hold Tim Allen’s.

“I don't want to hold your hand, thanks," Tim Allen said, knocking Skinbo’s hand away.

“I don't want to hold your hand," he said again, as Skinbo made another pass. He snatched Tim Allen’s finger and held on for dear life.

“Let go of my hand," Tim Allen said, lifting the small grease monkey and flinging him into the wall of the hallway.

“That's quite painful," said Skinbo, standing shakily after the impact. Somewhere deep in Tim Allen's cold soul flickered with humanity.

“All right. I'll hold your hand. Careful," Tim Allen said, taking the wrinkled hand of the supposedly subhuman gas attendant. Tim Allen dropped Skinbo at the armory and popped his head into where Holloway was getting the kids ready. The team had been suiting up in protective gear for a training exercise, but everyone froze as Tim Allen burst into the room. He scanned the room quickly, eyes came to rest on an old training dummy with a speaker tapped to it and a face crudely drawn on in off brand sharpie.

“Wait a minute. No way. Is that you, Mr. Pibb?” Tim Allen's couldn't believe that Grant hadn't cleaned that old pile of junk up years ago. The training dummy said nothing, gazing blankly past Tim Allen into eternity.

“How you doing, buddy? Give me five!"

“Mr. Pibb," said a voice from the speaker as Tim Allen high fived the dummies stiff hand.

“Yeah, that's the name we gave him," Tim Allen explained, leaning on Mr. Pibb and smiling, “When I was part of the team, crushing loneliness was a constant issue, so Grant drew a face on a dummy and made it say Mr. Pibb whenever it’s moved.”

Summer made her confusion at Grant's kindness known with a disdainful hip thrust. For the first time that day, Tim Allen was able to correctly read Summer's body language.

“He'd go get you candy and sodas, that sort of thing,” he explained, “If you were nice to him."

“Mr. Pibb," said Mr. Pibb.

“Mr. Pibb, is that old Rambler still down in the hangar?” Tim Allen asked the dummy. Its reply was its name, but Tim Allen still smiled. He hadn’t felt this happy in decades.

“Got the keys?" he asked Holloway. She made a face, but relented, pulling out a massive keyring from somewhere within her folds.

“All right, come on, guys. Watch your heads," she said, eyeing Tim Allen, who was still standing next to the training dummy. The kids eyed him as well. They all stood, waiting for Tim Allen to flip out like he usually did.

“Come on, this way. Get over here," Holloway said, annoyed. Collins began to walk towards Tim Allen.

“Go over there," Tim Allen said. He accidentally knocked into Mr. Pibb and he said his titular catchphrase.

“All right, Pibb," Tim Allen growled. His mood swings were becoming more erratic, and Holloway noticed.

Tim Allen and the gang walked down a series of hallways to a massive door. A small booth with a guard inside sat beside the huge door.

“Knock off the security cameras," Tim Allen ordered the guard loudly, “Open the door. Let's go. Go, go, go."

Tim Allen positioned the children so that when the door opened, they would see what was behind it in the best way possible.

“All right, stand right there. Ready?" he said, as the door began to groan open.

“Whoa," said Summer.

“Whoa," said Dylan sarcastically.

“It's the flying saucer from Area 51. It exists," Tim Allen said, glad that he had at least one conspiracy theory proven. Now he just had to connect it to the lizard people and he’d be completely justified for killing that black kid.

“Look at that," Lard-Butt said.

“Wow," said Collins.

“The government had it rebuilt after it crash-landed in the late '40s," Holloway explained.

“It's really awesome," Tim Allen said. He elbowed Dylan and his elbow almost got stuck in the boy’s thick liquidy skin.

“Yeah, it's amazing," Dylan replied in a dull monotone, slouching as he spoke. Tim Allen slapped the back of his head.

“Yeah. It's really cool," Tim Allen said. He straightened his back and walked towards the spaceship. The literal, actual, in the movie alien goddamn spaceship that they don’t go to space in because why would you ever even think to do that? Why in god’s name would you use a spaceship to explore planets when you could keep it for use by a team of children and their asshole mentor?

“And is this what's going to take us to all of our superhero gigs?” Summer said, sceptically. She was sceptical because, surely, the government could find some other use for a LITERAL SPACESHIP. Why am I so mad about this?

“I'm getting goosebumps," Tim Allen said, rubbing his crotch a little and walking into the spaceship. The door had been left open from the engineering teams last joyride. The rest of the team followed him in and through the twisting corridors to a large control room. It looked like something out of a Spy Kids movie: a quality example of early 2000s CGI. Tim Allen put his hands into a bucket of slime on a table with wires sticking out of it. The ship shook a little, and slowly rose in the hanger. Tim Allen twitched, and the ship flipped out of the hanger door and spun off into the sky. The ship flipped over, and the group was flung to different sides of the room.

“Got to stabilize this thing," he said, slime sloshing out of the bucket and onto the ground. After a moment of twitching and vibrating, the ship levelled out.

“Can I try?” Summer asked.

“You want to drive? The bucket doesn’t look very sanitary,” Dylan said worriedly.

“Yeah, definitely," Summer said, pushing Tim Allen out of the way and slammed her hands into the bucket. She began to move the ship down out of the sky towards a nearby farm.

“Some of the soldiers that drive this thing like to jerk off in there you know,” Tim Allen said, somewhat concerned. Summer leapt back in surprise.

“Oh, boy," Dylan said, enthusiastically.

“Let's make this thing rock," Lard-Butt said, either unfazed by touching soldier jizz and alien goo, or just oblivious to Tim Allen’s warning. He whipped the ship towards a cow that he noticed in the pasture. What a cow was doing in the desert in Nevada, nobody knew.

“Hey, barbeque, to go," he said, landing the spacecraft onto the cow, embedding it into the side of the ship.

“Tucker, put the cow back," Dylan said, embarrassed at the greed of the fat little boy.

“But I'm hungry," Lard-Butt complained to Holloway. She wagged her finger matter-of-factly.

“Tucker," she said.

“All right," Lard-Butt sighed, shaking the ship to dislodge the cow carcass. Lard-Butt began to fly towards a highway, where he could scrape the cow off on a building. He spotted a lamppost next to a Wendy's. Perfect.

“Hey, hey, hey. Watch the…” Tim Allen screamed as Lard-Butt ripped the ship at the post. There was a sound of tearing metal and the ship crashed to a halt in front of the drive thru.

“...light pole," Tim Allen said.

“Hello. Welcome to Wendy's,” said a voice from a metal box “May I take your order, please?”

“Classic Triple, lettuce, tomato," Dylan said through the window.

“Get me one," Summer said.

“Classic Triple, lettuce, tomato... I got it. Classic…” Dylan's face sagged, and he stumbled away from the window. Summer took over the order as Lard-Butt helped Dylan to sit up.

“Can you see? Can you see this?" he said, legitimately worried for the paper mache doll. He was holding some cash in front of Dylan's face.

“No, it's all green and blurry," Dylan said, his face melting down over his eyes. After a few seconds, his face had gone completely smooth, without any openings for his eyes or mouth.

“Extra fries," Summer said. Collins tugged at her shirt and crackled her order.

“Hold on a second," Summer said, motioning for Holloway to take over as she dealt with the old woman.

“I'm going to have a…” Holloway said as Summer began to drag Collins to a corner. Collins, however, had different plans, and bit and clawed until Summer let go. Holloway barely began her order before Collins had crawled in front of her and began to screech questions.

“What kind of toys do you have?" she squeezed out before Tim Allen tackled her. As Holloway gave orders to the drive thru server, Lard-Butt applied a wet washcloth to Dylan’s melting forehead, and Tim Allen and Summer held Collins down against the wall.

“Is that it?” Holloway asked, looking back at the children. Lard-Butt, having not given his order yet, raised a pudgy hand high above his head.

“Six Frosties," he gurgled.

“Six Frosties. Chocolate," Holloway said into the box.

“All right," it replied.

“Now, what's everyone else drinking?” Holloway asked, looking around the room. Tim Allen was busy with Collins, Lard-Butt had already ordered, Dylan was comatose, and Summer was pretending to suck off the air. Holloway walked to the console and flew the ship through the drive thru to the window, snatched the bags, threw in $1000 cash and scuttled back into the ship.

“We come in peace," Lard-Butt called from somewhere inside the ship as it took off.

Dylan, Lard-Butt, and Skinbo were slouched in the break room. Limp Bizkit played softly in the background, and the titular Bizkit sat, soggy and cold, on the counter next to the sink. Michael Anthony had let them into the break room after they had had Dylan checked out by the doctors. They said he was fine, but Lard-Butt had snuck some weed into the break room anyway. A reporter on the break room TV tried to comprehend the testimony of the drive thru attendee and put it into understandable words.

“That's right, Bob. We're outside the Wendy's where apparently a lot of people have seen some type of flying saucer," said a reporter on TV. The three laughed at the reporter. “The Wendy’s” was the funniest thing they had heard all week. It's the singular Wendy's, the only one. Lard-Butt turned off the TV and stood up on a table. He grabbed a clip of ammo and held it to his mouth like a microphone.

“I'm here with this weirdo stoner who saw real life aliens, but has absolutely no evidence, can you describe how the alien looked for us?” he said, holding the clip up to Dylan, who was completely whacked out of his mind.

“Uhhhh, pffffff, bgbgbbbbbbb, raisin lookin’, heheheh,” he slurred through his wet paper mache lips. Lard-Butt and Skinbo burst into laughter. Skinbo snatched a bottle of pills and held up his own remote.

“Slow news day, huh Ryan?” he asked Lard-Butt’s character. Lard-Butt thought for a moment before catching on.

“You’re absolutely right, Bob, this is literally the most interesting thing that has happened today. Back to you, Bob,” Lard-Butt stifled giggles as he stepped down off the table.

“That was Ryan on the street. Next up, we’ve got a crack head who said the saw a demon,” Skinbo said, collapsing back beside Dylan, who chuckled weakly. Lard-Butt, whose hunger was unparalleled, stood and walked shakily to the break room kitchen in search of food. His eyes came to rest on the Bizkit, whose late ‘90s early 2000s sound ebbed and flowed softly from within. Lard-Butt reached for the Bizkit. Skinbo lurched and ran to smack the Bizkit out of his hands. Lard-Butt sighed, offended, for he knew not the power of the Bizkit. If one is to eat even a small piece of the Bizkit, then they shall surely die, so sayeth Fred Durst, lord of food-based curses, king of hot dog flavoured water. Lard-Butt sighed dejectedly. He required food immediately. A loud noise outside the break room distracted the group, whose attention turned from finding food to finding gay weed adventures. The trio walked out into the hallway. Grant and Larraby stood, Holloway handcuffed behind them.

“Oh, no," Skinbo said.

“Just go back and act like nothing happened," Lard-Butt said, backing up into the break room and shutting the door, leaving the two others outside.

“We had a great day. Let's just leave it at that. All right, you guys?” Dylan said, throwing down some spiders and running off down the hall, his feet making wet slapping sounds as he ran.

“If I were you, Dylan, I'd disappear," Skinbo called after his new friend, before he was caught in a chokehold by Grant. So much for gay weed adventures.

Grant and Larraby strode into Tim Allen’s room, Skinbo and Holloway in tow. Tim Allen hastily hid the dead cat under his bed and looked up, smiling, at the intruders.

“Hey, Marsha," he said, more than a little confused about what was going to happen next.

“Mr. Tim Allen. How dare you?” Larraby said, planting a grey finger square in Tim Allen’s chest. Tim Allen just smiled.

“Do you even know what you've done?” Larraby barked in Tim Allen’s face.

“Yeah. I got you a hot chicken sandwich," chortled Holloway, withdrawing, with some difficulty, her precious burg. She tried to hand it to Larraby, but he kicked her in the jaw, sending her sprawling.

“No, thank you," Larraby said to the woman, whose jaw was now broken.

“Are you a vegetarian?” Tim Allen said, leaning his arm on Larraby’s shoulder.

“You're supposed to be training these kids for their first simulation. And instead, you're out gallivanting in a stolen spaceship," it was Grant’s turn to get mad. He screamed in Tim Allen’s face, spit flying out in all directions. His knuckles were white as he gripped his icepick.

“Was I gallivanting?” Tim Allen said, fluttering his eyelashes and blowing a kiss to Grant.

“Looks like the saucer's not the only thing stuck in the '50s," Grant said, slapping Tim Allen across the face. Sexual harassment would not be tolerated in this workplace, unless it came from Grant. Sexual harassment was his thing, and no half-rate comedian would cut in on his thing. He would only make exceptions for Louis and Bill because they were true funny men, unlike Tim Allen.

“You're probably 50," bubbled Holloway through her broken jaw.

“I'm not a vegetarian," Larraby said, a little hurt.

“It's a life choice. Nothing wrong with it," Tim Allen said, realizing that he may have gone too far with that joke. He patted Larraby on the shoulder and a sympathetic tear rolled down his cheek.

“Cindy," squawked Collins as she rushed into the room, ripping at any metal surfaces that she could find. She latched her claws around Larraby’s face. The ghost of Kerreen Conley, the recently assassinated mayor of Belleville, Michigan, had just possessed her body, which had begun the slow decomposition process. Grant and Larraby began to back down, dragging Holloway back out. Conley still clung to the general’s face, however.

“Let go of my face, please," Larraby pleaded. The 51-year-old mayor released her talons from the cheeks of the bossy general and scurried back into Tim Allen’s room.

“What are you doing in here?” Tim Allen said to the girl who looked like an old woman and was possessed by a slightly less old woman.

“I had a bad dream," crunched Conley.

“Well, I'm sorry you had a bad dream," Tim Allen said. Skinbo crawled out of the shadows and did an excited backflip.

“That's easy to do here, I guess," Tim Allen said, trying to demean Skinbo’s accomplishments in order to make him cynical to protect him from the cold, unforgiving outside world.

“You…” Conley said, narrowing her eyes at the gas station attendant. She gnashed her teeth and did a little jig to show her displeasure with the presence of a subhuman, that being the aforementioned service worker. Gas station attendants do not have human rights in Michigan, and for good reason.

“Let's walk you back to your room," Tim Allen said, nervous that someone was expressing views more right wing than his own. Even he respected gas station attendants a little and was generally indifferent to their issue of whether to grant them citizenship.

“Can I sleep here?” Conley said, scraping a circle onto the floor.

“Just for tonight?” Tim Allen said, pretending to ponder the request.

“No, that's not a real good idea," Skinbo said to Tim Allen, worried that he could possibly be in danger from this crazy woman.

“You don't want to stay here. I snore," Tim Allen said, worried that he wouldn’t be able to smoke cigarettes with the girl in the room.

“I'm quite gassy," Skinbo said, catching on to what Tim Allen was doing. Tim Allen stood, grabbed a broom, and scooted the little girl and/or old woman out of the room. She clattered out into the hallway, scuttering up the walls and murmuring to herself thoughtfully.

“I'm scared," Skinbo said, shakily humping Tim Allen’s leg. Michael Anthony walked briskly down the hall towards the trio. Conley lunged at Tim Allen, who batted her away with his broom.

“Hello? Little help here?” Tim Allen complained to the guard. Michael Anthony snatched the girl by the collar and dragged her down the hallway with him. Tim Allen looked down at Skinbo, who clung to his leg.

“You want to stay on the couch?" he asked, beginning to walk back into his room. Skinbo nodded furiously and jumped headlong into the couch in Tim Allen’s room.

“Thanks, Mr. Timallen," he yelped happily.

Michael Anthony dumped the girl possessed by the Belleville mayor into her room. He had been told by Larraby that he was to deal with the girl by placing her in confinement in her room for the night and keep her calm. It was too late to call up a security detail, so Anthony would have to deal with this crazy person for the whole night. He slammed the door closed.

“Can you let the light in?” Conley asked politely, settling down onto a bed made of two dogs stapled together.

“Yeah. I'll leave the door open. Because why would we want it dark while we're sleeping?” Anthony was grumpy. He knew that he wouldn’t be getting any sleep while he was on watch. He turned to leave, but hesitated. As his back was turned, Conley slipped into a tight-fitting playboy bunny costume.

“Good night, Cindy," he said, finally swinging the door open to reveal a gaping maw filled with pearl white teeth. Tim Allen stood in the doorway, his foot firmly planted next to the door edge so that Anthony couldn’t close it.

“Mr. Timallen?” Conley said excitedly. If a promotion from Tim Allen could get a six-time bankruptee into the white house fronting as a successful businessman, he could definitely get a ghost in fronting as a living human person.

“Cindy, please," Tim Allen said to Anthony, holding some roses behind his back. Anthony grunted, brushing past the comedian and political juggernaut. As long as Tim Allen dealt with the possessed Collins, Anthony could get some sleep, and yet he was still grumpy. He didn’t know why.

“What do you think of me?” Conley asked, worried about whether Tim Allen had realized that she was possessing one of the children. If he had, then his position on ghosts would probably be cemented, and he may not help her get into a higher office than ghosts are legally allowed to hold.

“You’re a very strong, terrifying old woman," Tim Allen said, smiling at the wrinkled face of the girl, “You know, but in a good way."

“Yes, I guess so," Conley said, covering her bases. Tim Allen seemed to already be in on Conley’s secret, but she wasn’t sure whether he could still be swayed. She decided to play it safe and pretend to still be Collins.

“Yeah, I feel like it’s probably all the biting and scratching you do," Tim Allen said, still smiling that sly grin, “You gotta go to sleep, Cindy."

“Is that why Mommy and Daddy sent me here?” Conley said, her fingers crossed behind her back that Tim Allen had at least a smidgen of humanity left that she could manipulate. Tim Allen’s smile broke, and Conley almost screamed for joy.

“Listen," Tim Allen sighed, “You have to go to sleep. I know you think you’re six, and six year olds need sleep. So do comedians."

Conley almost squealed. She had broken him, and he was to be her puppet from now on.

“Good night," Conley said, waving her fingers at the defeated comedian.

“Good night," he replied.

Tim Allen had dark circles under his eyes. Summer poked him as his eyes drifted lower. He didn’t react. Conley sat in the corner, bending her fingers back at odd angles. Last night had been hard, but Conley had come out on top. Grant walked into the training dome, under the supervision of Michael Anthony and a few other armed guards.

“Welcome to our fully operational, multi-platform J-1000 mission simulator," Grant said, gesturing around the room at the mechanical equipment strewn about haphazardly. The guards herded the children into a group and threatened to hit them if they didn’t pay attention to Grant’s speech.

“It is imperative that you learn to avoid enemy fire,” Grant said, pacing the room, “A bit more advanced than in your day, eh?”

Grant poked Tim Allen in the ribs. Tim Allen just shrugged. Grant frowned. Tim Allen hadn’t been broken this hard since his girlfriend cheated on him with his brother. Grant had had to help cover up how Tim Allen had sent his brother into another dimension with science mumbo jumbo and pretend to rage and kill his entire science staff so that they wouldn’t contradict him. Grant crouched in front of Tim Allen and made a face.

“Yeah, in my day we just had a British guy named Ben who threw sticks at us," Grant said in a funny voice, trying to mimic Tim Allen’s slurred speech patterns, something he had picked up as a result of drug use.

“So, what are the holes for?” Dylan asked, wagging his wet hand, dripping gluey water on the other children. He pointed at a row of holes in one wall with “Gloryhole” written in sparkly sharpie above them.

“It's funny you should ask that. That's the first question people ask," Grant said, confused at the trend of people being confused at non-bathroom gloryholes. He deferred to a man in a green jumpsuit.

“Our technician is Dick. Dick?”

“The holes are for firing the paintballs," said Dick, winking his one eye at each of the children in turn. Dick was tall and lanky, while his face was an odd round shape in comparison with the rest of his body. Over one eye sat a black eyepatch, nestled in his eye socket snugly. When he smiled, his teeth looked like perfect squares, as if his they were made of those white tiles that are on the walls and/or floor of every bathroom in the world.

“All right. I'm out of here," Dylan said, throwing up gang signs and walking out of the room. Michael Anthony sighed as the doll squelched away down the hall. Almost immediatedly, he was tackled and dragged away for punishment.

“He must like that isolation room," said Grant, trying to make up for Tim Allen’s inability to function as a jokester, laughster, goofster, or gaffster. He quickly turned and lead Tim Allen a few steps away from the children.

“It’s the first god damn lesson and you are catatonic,” Grant said to the semi-conscious Tim Allen. He gave Tim Allen a little slap on the jaw.

“The objective is to get the kids to 70% combat capacity," he said, spurting mustard onto Tim Allen’s pants from a bottle that he kept in his belt, “I'm going to start them off easily, about 10%. What do you think? 10%?”

Grant slapped Tim Allen again, and he let out a little moan. Two guards ran into the room to take Tim Allen into intensive care. Tim Allen had never gotten to a level of brokenness where he failed the mustard pants test.

“Yeah, yeah. That sounds great. Dick, 10," Grant yelled out to the technician, who nodded furiously and walked out of the room. A few seconds later, a splooch sound echoed off the walls of the training dome. A soggy red protuberance protruded from the gloryhole wall with a sloppy splat. Summer almost threw up. Grant clapped his ass to get the children’s attention.

“Children, your goal is to stop the simulator by pressing that red button in the center. How hard can that be?” Dick said, flourishing his hands, pointing to the fleshy blob hung sloppily through a hole in the wall. After saying this, he, Grant, and the remaining guards swiftly jogged out of the room. Before the training dome door closed, however, a beaten-up Dylan was thrown back into the dome. The dome door slammed shut and the chortle of old machines began to creak its way through the dome. Summer could sense Dylan wondering what was happening.

“I don't know," Summer replied to Dylan’s unasked question. She stood up as machines behind the wall began to whir and drone. A paintball flew out of the wall and hit Summer square in the face. Conley ripped some strips of metal off the walls and tossed them to the other children. The paintballs flew in random directions, so if they could use the metal as shields, they could beat the test. Conley demonstrated her idea to the other children by using the shield to walk towards the button.

“Watch. Ready?” Conley said, bracing herself for the impact of paintballs. The machines behind the walls whirred in a mechanical fury. As she got closer, the paintballs narrowed in on Conley.

“I think we might have to follow her,” Dylan said to Lard-Butt. Summer held up her shield and joined Conley. The paintballs suddenly parted as something fell from the ceiling. There was a flash of light, and Conley and Summer were bowled down by some immense force. Kendra Rose Montagna’s ethereal form crawled out from the rubble, dusting herself off even though no dust could cling to her body. Summer had not looked up and was nursing her head. Kendra Rose Montagna threw a peanut at her. The peanut landed in an open wound on her forehead.

“Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't…” Kendra Rose Montagna said, walking forward and sorrowfully picking the peanut out of the gash in her arch nemesis. Dylan looked at the girl before him. She was skinny and was wearing a name brand hoodie and tight ripped jeans over her ethereal body. She had an odd smile and seemed legitimately sad that she had caused harm. Maybe Summer was overreacting at school with the assassination attempt. It was that or Kendra Rose Montagna had had a change in character. A growl emanated from somewhere behind Kendra Rose Montagna.

“Meanie," gurgled Conley, snapping her arm back into place. She lunged at Kendra Rose Montagna, who deftly dodged the old woman/6-year-old and left her flying into Summer.

“Oh, no," Kendra Rose Montagna said as the two fell over each other. Summer stood, blood soaking her yellow training suit. She clenched her fists and ran at Kendra Rose Montagna.

“Watch out," Kendra Rose Montagna said, pointing to a piece of rubble on the ground. Summer heard this too late and tripped, sending herself sprawling into Kendra Rose Montagna. She looked down at the neko girl in her arms but failed to notice the wrinkled abomination barrelling towards her.

“Look out!” Dylan and Lard-Butt said, but it was too late. Kendra Rose Montagna couldn’t phase or dodge quick enough and Conley busted through the two girls, pinning Kendra Rose Montagna to the ground. Summer was dropped roughly to the ground. Kendra Rose Montagna punched Conley, who didn’t flinch. Collins’ long fingers, under the control of the former mayor of Belleville, wrapped around Kendra Rose Montagna’s blue transparent neck. Kendra Rose Montagna grabbed a piece of concrete and busted Conley over the head. This distracted her enough that Kendra Rose Montagna slipped out of her grasp and up into the air. She looked down at the children in their yellow outfits. She yawned.

“I'm getting…” She was going to say “tired”, but something behind her distracted her. Michael Anthony aimed a prototype railgun at Kendra Rose Montagna’s head.

“Who the hell are you?" Anthony commanded, unsure of who this floating girl was. She rubbed her thumb and forefinger together, indicating that she wanted money before she told him her name. He withdrew a twenty from his wallet, folded it into a paper airplane and tossed it to the floating light being.

“Ten more dollars and I’ll tell you," Kendra Rose Montagna said, still rubbing her fingers together. Michael Anthony looked through his wallet. He had given all his money to Tim Allen for vending machine snacks.

“Get me a name," he said into his radio. All he had left was a dollar.

“Hey. How about nine more?” Kendra Rose Montagna said, trying to barter for more shekels. The children rushed out of the open door, away from the still firing paintball holes. Kendra Rose Montagna wrote her name on a piece of paper and let it drift from her hand onto the ground before exiting through the hole in the ceiling.

“There's your name," she called down to the soldier.

Last night, after Skinbo had fallen asleep, Tim Allen had snuck out to spend the night with a certain mayor. So, when Skinbo was awakened by an odd voice, he assumed it was only Tim Allen. He turned on the light. No Tim Allen to be seen. He poked his head into the hallway. Down the hall a bit, a light flickered and someone turned the corner. Skinbo only caught a glimpse of their heel, bare, bony, and pale, before it disappeared behind the corner. Skinbo stood, pulled his jacket close around him, and descended into the facility. It could get cold in Area 52, deep in the dark and damp halls of the underfacility. As a weapon, Skinbo carried a glock, given to him by Michael Anthony to protect himself from Kerreen Conley, if she were to ever commit a hate crime against him. In return for the glock, Skinbo owed Michael Anthony one favour. What that favour would be had yet to be decided. Skinbo did not particularly care what his task would be. The protection would be enough. As he walked, the hall seemed to get smaller. It was gradual, so gradual that Skinbo questioned his eyes. Surely he was being paranoid. The guards under Anthony were always talking about how, if you went too deep into Area 52, you may never come back out. Skinbo wouldn’t normally venture so far into the facility without a guide, but he was on a mission. A shiver ran down his back. A cold air tingled the hair on his neck, like the breath of a corpse. He could feel the dampness in it, and he was sure that there was someone behind him. He slowly turned, but there was nothing there. Only the cold metal floor and the harsh white light of the fluorescent bulbs above him. He turned back and looked down the hall for the next flicker. Like clockwork, a light far away dimmed for a moment, flickered, and then turned off. Then one closer, then another, slowly advancing towards the attendant. Skinbo gripped the pistol in his hands, it’s metal and leather grip cold and a little wet. Or perhaps his hands were clammy. Or… perhaps…. ? The darkness crept forward, it’s rate staying steady, seeming to sync itself with the blood that rushed through Skinbo’s ears. He tried to run, but his feet seemed to land in the same spot whenever he lifted them to take a step. The darkness was close now, and the hall had grown yet colder. Skinbo could once again feel the cold, wet breath on his neck, and he could almost hear the rasp of the lungs which supplied that breath over his own skin. The darkness slowly approached, creeping ever on. Skinbo could only watch in horror as, deep within the shadow, something moved, silent and unseen, just below the border of light. The light from the fluorescent bulbs seemed to be sucked into the darkness, concealing some unknown, no, unknowable monster. Then, from deep within the shadow, a glint of light flashed for a second. The breath at the back of his neck retreated. The dark had stopped three lights away, and hung for a moment, like smoke, before dissipating. The lights were on. The hall was cold and dry. Skinbo himself was bathed in sweat. He put one cold hand on the back of his neck. Damp, definitely, though whether it was from sweat or something else he could only guess. Laying before him, three lights away, barely before where the darkness had stopped, was a broadsword. He walked forward, picked it up, and swung it. It was light. It felt like it balanced perfectly with his arm. A sound behind him made him jump, and he spun around, broadsword clutched in both hands. Skinbo sat up. Tim Allen had walked into the room to turn off the alarm that he had set the night before. He looked sad. And tired. Skinbo shook his head to clear it from the dream. He felt a little drained from the night. He slid sluggishly off the couch and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Tim Allen didn’t say a word after turning off the alarm. He was still in his clothes from yesterday, Skinbo noticed. He noticed something else too. In the corner of the room, propped up by a hamper, a broadsword sat, glinting in the light. Skinbo, for just a moment, felt the cold, wet breath on the back of his neck.

Grant walked down the hallway towards the training dome to see how progress was going with the paintball exercise. As he turned the corner, he was nearly knocked down by the force of Dylan running past.

“Excuse me, Dr. Grant," he yelled and skidded down the hall, leaving a trail of ink and paint as he went.

“Sorry, Dr. Grant," Summer said as she pushed past Grant, following Dylan.

“Why the rush, kids?” Grant called after them. He looked back down the hall to see Lard-Butt running, screaming, down the hall.

“Watch out!” he yelled barreling past. With Lard-Butt out of the way, Grant was met face to face with the slightly decaying body of Collins, her skin draped loosely around her, a broken bone protruding from her chest. Grant braced for impact.

Michael Anthony examined the rifle. It was long and sleek, with a barrel with transparent screens over it. Inside, a bright blue energy crackled and sparked in a jagged double helix.

“You see, it all works together in a double helix," said Larraby, repeating what Grant had told him about the weapon. Anthony was tasked with capturing the intruder, Kendra Rose Montagna, and Grant had left instructions on how to do so. He was busy dealing with an issue with one of the kids, however, so Larraby was tasked with briefing. Anthony nodded, thinking about the implications of the weapon.

“So, if you can manage to…” He was cut off by Larraby, who had gotten a call on his radio.

“I've got a thing. If you could get the double helix going, I'll be right back," he said, before picking up the radio barking orders into it.

“Think double helix," he called back to Anthony before shutting the door, leaving the security head holding the weapon in the darkness of the lab.

“That was ridiculous," Summer said, picking paint out of her hair. Her, Dylan, and Lard-Butt had retreated to the break room and were nursing their wounds.

“That was really bad," Dylan agreed, trying to curry favour with the only girl in the room. He didn’t think that Kendra Rose Montagna was that bad of a person, but he didn’t like how she busted a hole in the roof.

“I thought it was fun," Lard-Butt said, weed brownie in hand. As he said this, the door burst open to reveal an amazingly upbeat and chipper Tim Allen. He had been shot up with so much morphine that he couldn’t feel the pain of existence that had crushed him late last night. Summer glared at him and stormed off, angry that he hadn’t trained them to not be hit by paintballs. Dylan was going to follow her, but decided to go to his room. Tim Allen didn’t really care that he was being abandoned by the team, the morphine in his veins made him feel too good. Lard-Butt lounged on the couch and was soon joined by Tim Allen, who took a weed brownie for himself and ate it.

Michael Anthony held a radio to his ear. On the other end was Skinbo, who sat crouched behind a dresser.

“Smells like old socks in here," he complained, noting Dylan’s habit of beating up the bishop into socks. Anthony sighed.

“Is he in there?" he asked. From the other end, he heard the crash of a vent cover and Dylan sloppily entering the room. From a scratchy hidden camera video feed, Michael Anthony could see all. Dylan stood up from his fall, dusted himself off, and turned to a wall. He flicked a spider absentmindedly, and it was caught in midair by a glowing had protruding through the wall. Kendra Rose Montagna stepped out into the room. Anthony almost jumped for joy. Dylan smiled at her and sat on his military issue bunk bed.

“Sucks being in here, doesn't it?” Kendra Rose Montagna said, sitting next to him. Dylan responded by picking up the handmade throw blanket that lay on the bed.

“You know, Larraby actually knitted this," he said, holding the blanket in one floppy hand. Skinbo stroked the large weapon in his arms. Dylan smiled sadly.

“It’s supposed to keep us here, I guess," he said. Kendra Rose Montagna bit her lip, something she did when she couldn’t understand something. Dylan looked at her.

“I got out of here three times," he explained “And I'll bet Cindy could get out of here whenever she wanted to."

Then it hit her. Larraby and Grant were using the kid’s emotions to keep them here. That’s why Tim Allen was such always arguing with them, he sucked at being likable. The kids liked Grant, they enjoyed Holloway’s antics, but Tim Allen was just too much of an asshat for the kids to want to stay in his presence. Dylan watched her thought process and smiled as realization slowly spread across her face. Then it stopped, and she thought for a moment.

“I didn’t come here to fight Summer or anything. I don’t even hate her, really,” she said, and Dylan nodded knowingly. He knew that she was insecure about how people saw her, and that she made up for it by focusing on her looks. He knew that she bullied Summer because Summer was pretty, and she felt insecure. She looked down at her hands. They were shaking a little. She clasped them tight between her legs and looked back at Dylan.

“I’m not happy about it, if that makes any difference. I don’t even really expect to be forgiven. But I didn’t even know she was here, or that you were here, actually.” She hung her head. Dylan was a little confused as to why she was so sad. She wasn’t too terribly mean to Summer, and Summer’s reactions were often just what Summer would do normally.

“I’m looking for my brother,” she said quietly, barely able to contain herself. Her body shivered a little. Here was something new.

“I didn't know you had a brother," Dylan said, putting his arm around her. He didn’t faze through her. She composed herself, gulped, and continued. Anthony gripped the table. He was so focused on the light girl’s story that he didn’t notice a bloodied Grant step into the control room. He didn’t notice as Grant raised the butt of his icepick, and he didn’t notice until too late that he had been struck hard on the back of the head.

“I think they kidnapped him and dragged him here, and Grant…” Grant leaned over the unconscious guard and pressed the activate button on the radio. He whispered into the radio. Almost immediately, Skinbo snapped up from behind the dresser. The weapon, fully charged and glowing, spewed forth a bright blue beam of energy. The beam caught Kendra Rose Montagna square in the chest, ripping off Dylan’s arm, which had been around her shoulder. She tried to move away under the beam, but she couldn’t. Dylan’s wound spewed forth spiders. Skinbo wrenched a lever on the gun, and the beam glowed blindingly bright for a second, then dissipated. The room was dark, except for the glow of the Helix and a blinking green light on the weapon’s side. Guards burst through the door, snatching up the hysterical Dylan, treading on his spiders and subduing him. He thrashed around, yelling and cursing, but to no avail. Grant’s secret was safe, the escapee was captured, and only at the cost of Dylan’s arm.

Grant punched another hole through Dylan’s chest. He screamed with pain, his remaining arm gripping the chair he was tied to. The zip-ties cut into his paper skin, and the more he struggled, the worse it got. Grant had been “enhancedly interrogating” for some time now. It felt like hours, but Dylan couldn’t be sure. He had been telling the truth, he didn’t know what happened to Kendra Rose Montagna’s brother, but Grant didn’t believe him. Grant slammed his fist through Dylan’s jaw, which sputtered up gluey, inky water. Dylan’s head hung low. Before Grant could go in for another attack, Larraby held up a hand from the corner of the room.

“I think he's had enough. Let him out," he said, realizing that all the energy that Grant was spending beating up Dylan could have been used to beat up himself. Grant scowled. He snatched the back of Dylan’s chair and dragged him to the holding cell.

“Come on, Dylan," Grant said, giving Dylan one last wet smackeroo before ripping the zip-ties off and leaving the room. Dylan heard the click of the door lock, and he sat down. He tore some loose strips of newspaper from his legs and began to replace the holes Grant had punched through him. Outside, in the cellblock main office, a radio signal patched through. A scratchy order to release Dylan came through, and an isolation guard came to pick him up. After only a few seconds of waiting, Dylan stepped out into the hallway. In a few hours, the administration team would realize that Tim Allen had sprung Dylan from his cell, but if Dylan could remain hidden until then, he could continue to train with the team.

Kendra Rose Montagna struggled against the magnetic braces that held her in place.

“That magnetizes so you can't move," Grant said, laying his hand on a brace. Kendra Rose Montagna glowered at the scientist. Grant flipped the shock switch for another second. Kendra Rose Montagna’s eyes flared as she tried in vain to break free. Energy crackled around her arms as she thrashed at her invisible bonds. After three or four seconds, he released the switch. Kendra Rose Montagna cursed and wriggled against the magnetism. Grant grinned sadistically, positioning a large machine in line with Kendra Rose Montagna’s forehead.

“Put your head against these little diodes and they give you 13 times the lethal dose of Gamma radiation," he gurgled gleefully. Kendra Rose Montagna lay back against the metal restraints, gritting her teeth, or at least where her teeth would be if she had any. Grant leaned over the shock machine. He adjusted the volt nob and flipped the switch. This time, however, Kendra Rose Montagna was ready. She clenched her ethereal jaw and gripped at the magnetic braces. The lights flickered as she fought to keep still. She concentrated, trying to slowly push off from the magnet braces. She closed her eyes. That was a mistake. Grant jacked the nob up and Kendra Rose Montagna was hit with a harder wave of electricity. She hadn’t expected it, and her body flashed with energy. After a few seconds, she went limp in the magnet grip. Grant flipped the switch off.

Tim Allen had looked everywhere. He had looked in her room, the dome, the training room, the break room, everywhere. He had been searching for Summer for at least two hours. Maybe she had been moving from place to place as he searched? Or maybe…

Tim Allen burst into Dylan’s latest hiding spot, a cabinet in the breakroom kitchen. He almost yelled “aha!”, but he caught himself. Dylan sat, playing with a spider between his fingers. His new arm was still thin, no more than a few strips of wet newspaper, as they didn’t have any glue. It had been almost a week since Tim Allen had helped Dylan escape, and he had been hiding from isolation guards for the entire time. On the plus side, the team had been able to train a bit. Dylan frowned. Tim Allen kicked a track can, mad that Summer wasn’t there.

“And that made you more powerful?” Dylan said, mocking Tim Allen’s angry outburst. Tim Allen grimaced for a moment, but then smiled. He snatched Dylan by some paper mache and dragged him over to the isolation cells. He showed Dylan the interrogation cell that he had been in last week.

“Dylan, they're not going to put you in here. That's why I'm here," Tim Allen said menacingly, “To encourage your talents naturally."

Dylan didn’t respond. His face was smooth, no flaps open to see or hear or talk, and he had gone limp. Tim Allen didn’t even know if Dylan knew where they were. Then he remembered something. He slapped Dylan’s wet cheeks until Dylan woke up.

“Dylan, I'm talking to you," he said, screaming in a funny voice, “Where do you go when you fuzz out like that?”

“I…” He stuttered back.

“You don't perchance get a little headache over your eye when you do that, do you?” Tim Allen said, fluttering his eyelashes seductively.

“Maybe," Dylan said, unsure about what was happening.

“Maybe?” Tim Allen said, smacking the boy again.

“Maybe," he replied definitely. Tim Allen grinned so wide that his gums began to bleed.

“Dylan, I got an idea," he spurted, “I want you to think about Summer right now. Stand here and see if you can find her."

Dylan looked confused, or at least as confused as he could with his face still a little melty.

“But she's nowhere near here," he protested. Tim Allen sighed.

“I understand that. Trust your instincts. Go down this hallway in your mind and find her," Tim Allen said. Dylan’s face melted back down. Tim Allen held his limp body. A flap sputtered open to speak.

“I'm in her room," he gurgled. Tim Allen almost punched a hole through Dylan’s soggy head. He had already checked there.

“No, I…” He began to tell Dylan off, but then he remembered that Dylan didn’t have ears at the moment, only a mouth.

“I can see her dancing," the mouth said. Tim Allen almost did a dance as well. He slapped Dylan back to consciousness.

“This is unbelievable. This is a real gift. It's called mind-sight," he explained excitedly, “Look, these kids are going to need a leader. This team needs one."

Dylan was confused again. Thinking this much hurt his head.

“Why should I be the leader?" he asked, slurring his words together through his slowly adjusting mouth. His facial features slowly slid back into his head.

“Your mind-sight power is good for a leader to have," Tim Allen said, trying to explain it simply so that Dylan could process it with his mind fried. Tim Allen set off speed walking for Summer’s room again, hoping to catch her before she left. Dylan had to jog to keep up with Tim Allen’s beautiful fluid movements.

“And which one of the old team had the mind-sight thing like me?" he said, poking Tim Allen in the side.

“Oh, Marksman," Tim Allen answered.

“Marksman,” panted Dylan, pondering the name “What happened to him? And your girlfriend, Ace?”

Tim Allen picked up his pace a little.

“They all lost their lives doing what they do, being heroes," his voice wavered a bit, but Dylan chalked it up to his bad speed walking technique. In his mind, a true speed walker could have a fluid conversation while walking without any irregular vocal inflections like panting, heavy breathing, or wavering voice. He put it out of his mind.

Tim Allen was frightened by the idea that someone might find out, after all these years, the lies about his brother, Concussion. His brother had killed the team, to be sure, but it wasn’t Gamma-13, or the government that had turned him evil. It was Tim Allen. When Ace and Concussion had swapped fluids, so to speak, Tim Allen had lead the team against the two. Concussion, enhanced by radiation, had been able to destroy the team, but he relented when Tim Allen killed Ace. With them being the only two left, Tim Allen sent his brother into an alternate dimension, and had Grant kill all the members of the science team to silence any witnesses to the crime. Did he regret it? Of course. Did he hate himself? Well, why do you think he started doing heroin?

Three isolation guards stepped out of an adjacent hallway to block the path of Tim Allen and Dylan. Three more emerged behind Dylan and grabbed him. Michael Anthony stepped out from between the soldiers, nursing a nasty bruise on the back of his head.

“Dylan’s going back into isolation, Tim Allen, Larraby’s orders,” he said bluntly as Dylan was dragged away into the facility. Just as quickly as Tim Allen was surrounded, he was left alone in the cold hallway.

Kendra Rose Montagna almost threw up. She couldn’t physically do it because she was a being of pure light energy and therefore had no stomach, nor food to throw up. And yet, as Grant flipped the switch once again, through her convulsions, something welled up inside her. She had thrown up once before, back before she had gotten her powers. It felt now like how she remembered that feeling. As hundreds of volts of electricity pounded through her, her shaking hands slipped out from the grip of the magnetic braces, although only for a second. Grant flipped the switch off. Kendra Rose Montagna looked down at her hands. Her usually bright, translucent hands were now cloudy and opaque. Something had changed. She felt weak, drained, sick to her stomach. But she didn’t have a stomach. She didn’t have one. She didn’t have a stomach. Her stomach heaved, and she wretched for the first time in years. A trickle of grey cloudy liquid dribbled out of her mouth. She could feel it roll down off the roof of her mouth. She wretched again, her body twisting under the magnets. This time, something seemed to click and a waterfall of grey vomit erupted out of her mouth. For the first time in her life, Kendra Rose Montagna was truly afraid. Larraby walked into the room holding his nose.

“I ain't cleaning that up," Kendra Rose Montagna said to the two men, not letting on that she was scared. Larraby ignored her and turned to Grant for his opinion. Grant sighed.

“Our only hope lies with Marsha and Timallen training the kids," he said doubtfully. He was sure that Kendra Rose Montagna was done for. Larraby, however, wasn’t. He looked back at the now opaque girl held delicately in midair by the magnetic braces. Grant frowned.

“You can't be considering Gamma radiation after what happened to Timallen's brother?” Grant said in disbelief. Larraby couldn’t make that mistake again, certainly not with a being as powerful as Kendra Rose Montagna. Larraby looked into Grant’s eyes and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Concussion becoming evil was a horrible result," he admitted, “He's coming for Timallen sooner than I thought. And this is where he'll emerge."

He drew up a map on one of the monitors in the lab. The map was of Area 52, with a red dot in the center of one of the training rooms. Larraby pulled up the coordinates of quantum anomalies as an overlay to the map.

“These will allow you to see the dimensional rift we've been tracking,” he said, pointing out markers on the map, “He's more powerful than I thought."

Grant sighed and looked away from the screen. Larraby straightened to his full height. He looked doubtfully at Kendra Rose Montagna, who was mouthing profanities at the two. After a moment for consideration, he caved in to Grant’s request.

“You better have a plan that works this time, birdbrain," he said. Grant smiled. That was just what he wanted to hear. He closed the window with the map and pulled up his plans for a device in the R&D archives.

“Well, the kids will have to distract him so that we can launch the sonic net I've designed,” Grant explained, “The net will capture him in such a way that it causes him to concuss back on himself."

Larraby looked back at Kendra Rose Montagna.

“Is that our only option?" he said, putting a hand on his bald head.

“Well, if Timallen still had his powers, his speed could create a mega vortex which would trap Concussion and reverse the dark effects of the Gamma radiation," Grant suggested, “How much time have we got?"

“Forty-eight hours. Tops," Larraby replied. Grant cursed under his breath. Not enough time. It was the net or Gamma then, and he couldn’t risk Kendra Rose Montagna becoming any more antagonistic to the government.

Holloway knocked on Summer’s door. One of her flowing, gravity defying dresses was draped around her new shoulders. Her figure was thin and bony now, her body no longer round and bulbous like a raisin. She was still quite wrinkled, and her mouth was still quite wide, but her eyes seemed to shine far brighter than usual, so that was a plus. She held a large garbage bag over her shoulder, but held it as though it weighed nothing. Summer opened the door a crack and looked out. It was around nine o’clock at night, and she had her protective gear halfway off.

“Anybody home?” Holloway said through the crack. Summer sighed and opened the door.

“Hi."

“Hey," Holloway said excitedly. Summer was too tired to be unnerved by Holloway’s new body. After Dylan had been recaptured and returned to his cell, and the rest of them had been stuck doing combat training with Pibb until they nearly collapsed. Summer stepped away from the door and let Holloway into her room.

“Nothing to wear?” Holloway asked, pointing to the half removed combat gear that Summer had over her shoulders. Holloway plopped down on Summer’s bed and opened her sack.

“How'd you guess?” Summer asked sarcastically. She wasn’t in a particularly good mood. Holloway gestured for Summer to sit down next to her.

“Come here. Maybe I have something for you," she creaked. Her long fingers rustled through the bag until resting on some hidden object.

“There it is. I knew it was in here somewhere," Holloway drew out a long, beautiful dress. Summer was taken aback.

“Wow. Pretty," she said, a little remorseful that she had misjudged the once raisin-like woman. Holloway held the dress up to Summer, looking her over.

“That's perfect," she warbled to Summer happily. She deftly folded the dress up and held it out to Summer.

“Are you sure?” Summer asked, reaching out to take the gift. Holloway waved her question away.

“Oh, yeah. It's just one of many purchased for dates that never happened. Turned out to be lonely nights reading my comic books. In between the crying fits," Summer was stunned. She knew Holloway was a weirdo and a nerd, but she never really related to her. Maybe she had shut off her emotions for a reason. Summer smiled and let Holloway continue her story.

“It all started with my prom. I always thought the prom queen should be the girl with the highest I.Q.” Summer nodded along.

“Now that would make sense," she said. Holloway smiled with her wide mouth, then the two laughed. After a few minutes of chatting and banter, Summer held up a finger. Holloway cocked her head. Summer took the dress into the bathroom, and, a few minutes later, emerged wearing it and holding her combat armour. Holloway grinned.

“Finally, a woman without a lab coat," she joked. Summer laughed. Holloway reached into one of the floating strands of dress and removed a flask.

“We got a party now," Summer said, grinning. Holloway poured the two of them drinks and bantered some more. Once they were significantly hammered, Holloway raised a shaky finger matter-of-factly.

“You know, I like having you here. Don't get me wrong,” she slurred, “But I'm not sure Cindy can handle the competition."

Summer took a few seconds to get the joke. _It must have been about Dylan,_ she thought.

“This is really nice of you," Summer said, putting a hand on Holloway’s shoulder.

“Well, they worked hard. They deserve this," Holloway said. Summer was confused again. Her eyes drifted to the floor. Then she noticed the long, fleshy tendrils reaching down and around Holloway’s legs. Holloway went for the neck. Summer tried to scream, to yell for help, to do anything, but she couldn’t. She moved in slow motion, and Holloway seemed faster than a bullet. Summer’s eyes went wide.

The door to Dylan’s cell opened slowly. Tim Allen looked in on the sad wet paper mache boy.

“Let's get cracking," he said. Dylan drearily walked with Tim Allen to the other kids rooms. He was carrying two pots, one in each hand, and was fiddling with their handles as they entered Summer’s room. Tim Allen began to bang the pots together loudly, running around the room, screaming “Hey, guys. Everybody. Get up. Come on. Get up. Come on, gorgeous. Hop up."

He cracked Summer over the skull with one of the pots, whooping and hollering. Then he ran across the hall into Collins’ room.

“Sleeping's for wimps. Get up. Come on,” screamed Tim Allen, “Come on. Come on. Come on, come on."

Conley forced Collins’ body up and out of bed. Tim Allen giggled and clapped his hands.

“There you go. Everybody. Come on. Get up. Hurry, before the guards see us."

The group stood sullenly, none of them quite human, but all still tired.

“Good, good, good. Figured you guys would be getting tired of sleeping,"

Tim Allen knew that he had forgotten someone; there was at least one person that was still a human in the group besides himself. Dylan was there, but was also a being made of paper mache. Collins may have some small grasp of her consciousness still clinging to that decaying body of hers, but Tim Allen doubted that it could break free of Kerreen Conley’s iron willpower. Summer was, at the very least, no longer being controlled by a human. Her vacant, wide eyes drifted aimlessly around the room, never focused, always moving. She scared Tim Allen. Lard-Butt! That’s who was left! Tim Allen bustled the small group over to Lard-Butt’s room.

“Come on. Tucker, come on, buddy, get up," Tim Allen said, prancing about, hands waving and gesticulating wildly. He pointed an accusatory finger at Conley, who’s host body certainly had enough strength to carry the boy out of bed.

“Roll that big potato out of bed. Hit your light. There you go, come on. Get up, get up," Tim Allen crowed. He directed Conley to lift Lard-Butt up to face him. Lard-Butt’s eyes flickered. Tim Allen grinned in his face.

“What's the matter with you?" he screamed, “What time did you go to bed last night? How tired can you guys...?”

Lard-Butt passed out in Conley’s arms. Tim Allen sighed and put a hand on his forehead.

“All right. Somebody brush his teeth, get him in his outfit. Let's go. Come on!"

Nobody moved. They may not have been human, but they still understood privacy. Or, at least, Dylan and Conley understood privacy. Summer likely was only a shell of her former self, either from something Holloway did, or from Tim Allen’s frying pan, or a combination of the two. And Collins, well, Tim Allen could say with almost one hundred percent certainty that Collins was no longer in her corpse and, if she was, she most certainly wasn’t paying attention. Tim Allen scowled at the kids.

“I said let's go!"

He clapped his hands and winked at Dylan, who mumbled a few racial slurs under his breath and picked up Lard-Butt’s feet.

“All right, all right," he groaned. Tim Allen hurried the group down the halls and through winding passageways until nobody knew exactly where they were. Tim Allen had, once the group had picked up the pace, moved to the front of the little troupe. Summer held up the back, to make sure that nobody tripped on the strange tentacle that was wrapped around her leg, trailing off down the seemingly infinite hallways. An enormous figure emerged from around a corner. Holloway, in an oddly shaped pink and white dress, had expanded in size so much that, although she maintained her spherical shape, she was now a head taller than Tim Allen. Tim Allen stopped. Holloway gurgled with delight. Or pain. You could never tell with Holloway.

“What happening? Where are we going?" she blubbered through thin, floppy lips. Tim Allen brushed past the monolithic entity that was Holloway. She trailed behind the group for some time, before ducking into a bathroom. The group stopped just ahead of where Holloway had ducked out. The lights were dim and flickered ceaselessly. On the wall was a breaker panel who's lock was broken.

“Oh, neat. An electrical panel," Dylan said, unenthusiastically

“It's a secret electrical panel," corrected Lard-Butt, sarcasm dripping from his voice like glue.

“Come on. I'm tired. Let's go back to bed," Conley's voice echoed from somewhere within her host corpse.

“I'm hungry," Lard-Butt complained.

“I'm so cold," Summer whispered. Her eyes seemed to clear for a second before glazing over again, her vacant expression broken by pain for only a moment. Perhaps she was still in there, fighting. Or maybe it was her last gasp before being taken over.

“Stop whining. Superheroes don't whine," Tim Allen bellowed. The group looked at Tim Allen in stunned silence. Conley was the first to break the silence.

“Where are we?" she creaked. There were no signs this deep into the facility. The last one that the team had seen was for the washroom, and that didn’t really explain much about where they were. Tim Allen smiled grimly.

“We are someplace,” he slammed his fist into the breaker and a camera nearby stopped in its rotation, “where the cameras won't see us."

Dylan snatched a piece of paper out of Tim Allen’s back pocket.

“Whoa, what is this?" he asked. Tim Allen grabbed the paper out of Dylan’s wet newspaper hands.

“Are we getting our names?” Dylan slapped his wet thighs and jumped around like a prospector. The group erupted into cheers, with the exception of Summer, who only screamed.

“Finally," Lard-Butt moaned sensually.

“Shut!” Tim Allen said. He unwrinkled the paper and held it like a scroll. Before he could give the kids their names, however, Dylan collapsed. Tim Allen dropped the scroll and rushed to Dylan’s side.

“What's the matter, Dylan?” Lard-Butt said, as he didn’t know about Dylan’s new ability.

“I see Dr. Grant and Larraby," he said, then gasped. Tim Allen slapped Dylan and he sat up.

“Your brother, Concussion. He's alive. He's coming back," Tim Allen was a little disappointed. He already knew that. Tim Allen stood, helping Dylan to his feet. He jogged down the hallways towards some unknown destination. As they ascended from the depths of the facility, the group began to notice a significant change in the decor. Along the floor were long fleshy tendrils, some emerging from vents, some from down hallways, some even emerging from holes in the walls themselves. Tim Allen stopped short of a door labeled “control center 5”. He held up his hand, stopping the children from going further.

“Stay out of sight," he whispered. He cracked open the door silently.

Cindy forced her way through Conley’s mind, reclaiming her lost body as she swept through the rotting brain. If it hadn’t been for a random holy water spill on the floor, Conley would have had a chance, but it was too late for that. The mayor of Belleville, Michigan, struggled for a moment, and then let go. Cindy could feel her body’s decay, her stiff joints, her over stressed muscles, her torn and rotting skin. But that mayor was gone, and only she remained. Dylan was standing down the hall a few feet away, so she walked over to him to see what was going on.

Dick was frantic. He gathered his papers and dropped them into a file box. Grant was in an adjacent room working out the last kinks in an energy weapon. General Larraby stood, arms folded, dildo on the table, glaring at Dick doing his frantic work. The past few hours had given none of them sleep, and Larraby was feeling it. He was far more irritable and stern than usual, and he was usually very stern and very irritable. Dick wiped his forehead with his hands, then wiped his hands on his lab coat. He poured over a constant stream of information on a console at the back of the room, the only light source in the entire control center. Blue light silhouetted Dick's head, a glowing halo around the eyepatch wearing technician. Michael Anthony sat in the corner, watching.

“General Larraby, it is only a matter of moments before Concussion will be here," he said, still gathering papers and writing down data from the console.

“At 8:59 p.m., the portal broke through the final dimension," Dick looked over at Larraby. Then he noticed that the door was open. He just kind of stood there, his mouth moving, mouthing words for a couple seconds.

“Wow. Just when I was beginning to like you," Tim Allen leaned nonchalantly on the door frame, pretending to smoke a cigarette.

“‘It's all for the kids, helping them cope, bring out what's best in them,’” Tim Allen said, mimicking Larraby's stern voice. He reached up and flicked Larraby's nose. Larraby glared at Tim Allen.

“What are you talking about?” Larraby asked bluntly.

“Stop the innocent routine, okay?” Tim Allen said, a little pissed of at being treated like a child.

“What? Tim Allen," Larraby stepped forward. Grant burst through the door, brandishing the modified netgun wildly. Kendra Rose Montagna was wheeled out behind him. Her face had regained its color, and she was a bit more lively. She knew something was going down, but she didn't know what.

“That's when we deploy the sonic net," Grant yelled, showing off his new invention to his boyfriend. Then his eyes fell on a smug Tim Allen.

“What the hell's going on?” Grant had been in a good mood. They had a good shot against Concussion, but Tim Allen's smug face was an omen of a wrench in their plans. Holloway piled her oddly shaped body into the room, crowding everyone more. She rested her chin on Tim Allen's head.

“Right now, my stomach flesh is burning. Tim Allen?" she chattered. Tim Allen ignored her.

“Tim Allen, can you talk to me?" she groaned into his ear.

“Not now, Holloway," Tim Allen said, not letting his annoyance show. Kendra Rose Montagna craned her neck to look at a screen on the console. A mugshot of a glowing face stared back at her, MIA written in neat print over the face. Her brother. Larraby was starting to feel a bit claustrophobic.

“Guards, get her out of here," he commanded. Anthony stood and brought Kendra Rose Montagna back into the room where Grant had been working.

“You killed him! You bastards killed my brother!" she screamed as she was pulled back into the room. The door slammed shut. Holloway tugged at Tim Allen's shirt.

“Holloway! Out! Now!” he yelled. Holloway just smiled, her teeth white and gleaming in the blue glow of computer monitors. She already knew about Concussion. Larraby grunted menacingly.

“They're going to be heroes, Tim Allen, and heroes always do the right thing," Larraby said. Tim Allen grimaced.

“You're going to send these kids up against Concussion? They'll never have a chance," Tim Allen said, gritting his teeth. He tightened his fists.

“Not the way you've trained them," squeaked Holloway. Tim Allen's decked her. Grant gasped. Dick almost dropped a load… of papers that he was carrying. Larraby shot a glance at Anthony, who had just walked back into the room.

“Guards, take this bozo away," Larraby ordered. Anthony stood still. Tim Allen grinned. Anthony wouldn't be taking Tim Allen out of the room. He wouldn't be taking orders from Larraby anymore. Or Grant for that matter. Or Holloway, although he would never have taken orders from her anyway. Larraby turned to Anthony, who smirked. A timer on a monitor went off, signaling that Concussion's vortex would open in an hour. Anthony opened his mouth. Larraby realized just too late what he was about to say.

“One hour and…” Anthony paused dramatically, “counting.”

All hell broke loose.

Tim Allen dashed out of the room. There were only three kids in the hall, but Tim Allen didn't care. He grabbed onto Dylan's and Cindy's hands, dragging them down the hallway. Lard-Butt ran behind them. As they ran, jumping over the tentacles that ran along the ground, Tim Allen thought of an escape route. The spaceship? Too slow. A truck? Maybe, but they would be guarded. The isolation guards could help, considering that Michael Anthony was on their side now, but there was no guarantee. He stopped running. Alarms were going off, everywhere, though why exactly was a mystery to him. Tim Allen looked desperately around for an exit. There was a hanger entrance, but that would be swarming with soldiers. There was a vent, but it wouldn't fit Lard-Butt's round ass. Eh. Tim Allen never liked Lard-Butt anyway. The three crawled into the vent, leaving the obese boy to try to fit in behind them.

“I'm way too big for this. You can't... Guys…” they were already gone. Lard-Butt dragged himself back out of the vent. He was alone. The only sound was the wailing alarms. The tentacles on the ground sat, heavy and unappetizing, but Lard-Butt was hungry.

“You know, they're just a bunch of kids. You can't do this," Anthony said. Grant lunged at him anyway. Holloway and Tim Allen had scuttled out of the room and in different directions down the hall. Larraby ducked into the side room that contained Kendra Rose Montagna. Dick crowded to the back of the room in fear of Grant's rage. Grant swung at Anthony with his icepick, blue light from the monitors glinting off the blade. The sharp metal instrument grazed Anthony’s shoulder as he dodged to the side. His hand went instinctively to the wound, covering the scratch. Grant swung again, this time missing entirely. Anthony grabbed a computer from a desk and slammed it into Grant’s head. Grant stumbled back, glasses broken, blood running from his nose and onto his lab coat. Anthony ran forward into Grant, tackling him towards the wall. He grappled with Grant’s head, bringing his neck down against the hard edge of a table. Grant fell to the ground, gasping and clutching at his throat. Anthony placed his foot on top of Grant’s neck, slowly increasing pressure. Grant struggled weakly, gripping at Anthony’s leg, his face pale with fear. Anthony drew his leg up and stomped down hard onto the scientist’s neck. Grant seized, his legs kicking out, his hands clawing at the guard’s foot on his neck. After a moment, however, he lay still. The scientist lay prone, blood from his nose and face pooling under him. Anthony turned and looked at Dick, who stood with Grant's dropped icepick in the corner. Dick ran at Anthony, but was decked before he could even swing the icepick. Anthony dragged the thrashing Dick across the room and, taking Dick's head in his hands, aimed his good eye at the corner and cracked his skull against a metal table. Dick fell limp, blood pouring from his eye socket. Anthony stood and walked to the door of the adjacent room. He creaked open the door, half expecting Larraby to brain him with the butt of a gun. But no impact came. Anthony opened the door wide. A huge hole had been blasted through the wall by Kendra Rose Montagna when Anthony had set her free, and Larraby must have gone after her. Anthony turned and walked over to the PA system.

Summer sped down the halls of the building, snatching up soldiers and ramming them down her throat as she passed. I say Summer, but what I really mean is her body being used like a hand puppet for Holloway. Her skin had become a little more grey and raisin-like after Holloway had vored and assimilated her, and her eyes were a little unfocused, but overall she looked at least more like her former self than Cindy looked like a living human person at this point. Her slow process of becoming like Holloway was only now beginning to show physically, which was a shame, since Holloway's acting had improved dramatically since voring Summer. If you ignored the tentacles and sagging skin, you could only barely tell that anything was wrong with the neko girl. Her legs didn't move as she flew through the hallways; instead, the tentacle connecting her to Holloway slithered and snaked through the halls for her. Usually anime girl and tentacles are reserved for the more hot and heavy animations, but I thought that it would be good to give tentacles some more variety. She turned a sharp corner and nearly bowled through five soldiers. Her arm shot out, extending with new bones and flesh feeding in from the tentacle under her. She caught one soldier and ripped him through his comrade into a wall. Her arm, now long and sinewy, shuddered and split down the center, exposing sharp bone skewers. Two down, three to go. A skewer blasted through the body armor of one of the soldiers, dragging him to the ground and back to Summer. Another end of Summer's arm rippled and swiped at a second soldier's ankle. Summer lunged forward, pinning the remaining two soldiers to the wall with her tentacles. One of the soldier’s skulls cracked against the metal wall so hard that it almost fell off. Of the five soldiers she had met, now only one was alive. She would leave him for last. Her arm retracted back, bone spikes sinking into her flesh, leaving no mark on her skin. Her jaw unhinged and gaped, revealing rows of teeth leading down her throat. She gulped down the bodies of four soldiers and was about to start on the fifth when movement caught her eye.

“Tucker," she gurgled, blood dripping out of the corners of her mouth, which regained shape almost as soon as Summer had noticed the boy beside her. Lard-Butt would be a tough fight, but a rewarding one. His speed was almost a match for Cindy, his hunger paralleling her own. Summer readied her tendrils. Then she stopped. Though it's power was diminished, Summer's empathic abilities could still be used by her host, and she sensed no fear in Lard-Butt. Either he knew something that she didn't (impossible) or Lard-Butt wasn't here to fight.

“That was awesome," he said, no irony in his voice. Just awe. Her speedy cannibalism must have impressed the boy. It would be better for Summer to play it safe and keep her powers somewhat hidden before taking Lard-Butt. She quickly disemboweled the soldier and tossed him to Lard-Butt. Might as well let him have it, after all, she was going to get it back in a few minutes. When he had finished the soldier, Lard-Butt stood up, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Come on, let's go," Summer said, turning down a hall. Lard-Butt followed dutifully. Coming up to a corner, Summer stopped abruptly. Lard-Butt nearly tripped over her tentacles. A totally blind, woozy, and barely alive Dick stumbled down the hall. Summer slithered out from her place around the corner. Dick's hands were clasped firmly over the bloody hole that had once been his eye. Summer coughed loudly. Dick spun around to face Summer, his face contorted in pain and anger.

“Can I help you, Miss Jones?" he said sarcastically. Summer didn't respond. Instead, she easily lifted Dick off the ground and unhinged her jaw. Dick's hands gripped at the thick, steel cord muscles of Summer's arms, revealing the hideous remnants of an eye that he had been hiding.

“Put me down, Miss Jones," he screamed, but Summer paid him no mind. She gulped down the technician quick and clean, licking the bloody handprints that Dick had left on her arms. Lard-Butt grinned at Summer, his face almost too gleeful. He couldn't abide by his position on the team being threatened by Tim Allen, but Summer was a cute anime cat girl, and there really wasn't a team anymore, so it was fine that he had found another vorarephile.

“Man, that is so hot," he said. Summer grinned. If he thought that is was hot, she could exploit it.

“You think so?" she said modestly. Lard-Butt clambered over the tentacles that now covered the ground to look down her throat. He reached down inside her gaping maw, admiring her rows of teeth and flexible neck.

“Hey, not bad. Nice work," he said, after trying to pluck out a tooth.

“Thanks," Summer replied, thought it was barely understandable, as she had someone rooting through her mouth at the moment. Lard-Butt pulled himself out of Summer's mouth, looking into her eyes. He considered his options. Summer was confused. He was aroused, that she could tell. She didn't even need her empathic ability for that. There was something else too, a deep thought and consideration. After thinking for a moment, Lard-Butt reached a conclusion.

“Hasta luego, man," he said, and crawled headfirst into Summer's still open mouth. Whether he had thought that he could survive assimilation or that he thought vore irl was the best way to die, Summer didn't know, or care. She didn't have to fight Lard-Butt, and that was that.

Everything was chaos. Concussion was going to show up any minute, the soldiers were all either evacuating or trying to attack the isolation guards, the kids and Tim Allen were nowhere to be found, Larraby was missing, Holloway was eating people, and Kendra Rose Montagna was destroying any vehicle that tried to leave the premises. Michael Anthony wiped sweat from his forehead, slicking back his hair and taking a deep breath. He was the most handsome and well liked person on the planet, but nothing had been the same since his wife and mother and father and daughter had died in that car/plane crash many years ago. His soldiers crowded around his shoulders, looking down at the screen before him. Tim Allen was somewhere in the building, undoubtedly with the surviving kids. After his unexplained yet inevitable switch to the good guy team, Anthony had only one goal: get everyone in the facility out alive, besides Grant because Grant was obviously evil and also dead. He had divided up his remaining forces to find Tim Allen and the kids and rescue them. The screen in front of him was lit up with a map of the facility, with noted life signs marked with red dots. There were two groups left, waiting for areas of Area 52 to search. The commander of one of the group's tapped a group of five red dots on the screen.

“I'll check this one," he said, saluting and leading his team off to rescue what he thought was children. Anthony looked down at the screen. He only had one more group left. One of them better be right. A lieutenant leaned over Anthony's shoulder, pointing at a group of red dots near the center of the facility.

“I think he's…” before he could finish his thought, the clump swirled and shifted into one mass, indicating that whoever had been there had been eaten by Holloway or one of her tentacles. Anthony slammed his fist down on the screen, which nearly broke under the force of his manly pounding.

“Where is he?" he yelled. He pulled away from the screen, letting his lieutenant try to find the children. After a few moments, the lieutenant walked over cautiously to where Anthony stood, taking deep breaths to calm himself. Anthony reluctantly stepped back towards the screen.

“Ok. He's right here," he turned, grabbed a rifle from the ground, and walked out into the hallway.

When Tim Allen, Dylan, and Cindy were found hidden in a vent above some bathrooms, Michael Anthony could begin the evacuation of the facility. He had nearly been knocked over when he met Tim Allen and the two surviving kids in the halls. Evidently, Holloway had been right behind them, and Lard-Butt had been with them, but there was no trace of Lard-Butt, nor of Holloway besides the tentacles that lay on the ground, and those were just about everywhere in the facility at this point. But that was then. Anthony stood on top of a wooden box in the center of the hanger, directing and dictating and ordering faster than he had ever done in his life.

“I want this done as fast and efficiently as possible," he said to his lieutenant before dismissing him to his duties.

“Yes, sir," was the reply. The isolation guards were finishing loading boxes full of important technology and information into the saucer before it took off for Area 51, where it would be held until Area 52 was secured or, if need be, rebuilt. Skinbo stood at the foot of the box, leaning on a massive broadsword that he had recovered from some depths of the facility. Tim Allen, the three remaining kids, and Mr. Pibb, the product placement training dummy, sat in a corner of the hanger, waiting for something interesting to happen. And then something did happen. There was an explosion near the main hangar door, and then gunshots.

“What's that? What's happening?” Anthony called down to a guard. Some soldiers, most likely under the command of Larraby, whether directly or indirectly, must have mounted an attack. Tim Allen stared intently down towards the fighting with a bored disinterest and tiredness that you will often find during marathons of Home Improvement.

Tim Allen headed for the predicted arrival point of Concussion. Once he had made sure that Dylan was ok in the hanger with Cindy, he had begun his trek back into the facility. The portal was supposed to open in the training room, so that’s where he was headed. Or where he had been headed, when he saw Kendra Rose Montagna. She stood in the center of the hallway, her ethereal body rippled and coursed with energy. Behind her, the training room was bathed in a brilliant display of color. Kendra Rose Montagna glared at Tim Allen only for a moment, then turned back towards the huge interdimensional portal that had opened up inside the base. Kendra Rose Montagna was mad. She didn’t know what this was, but she was sure it must be some trick by Larraby. From out of the portal, a boy, about seventeen, floated slowly. His eyes were focused straight ahead, taking no heed of the others in the room. His hair was long, hanging down to his shoulders, and his torn yellow jumpsuit fluttered in the wind that the portal whipped up. Once his body had been fully pulled out of the portal, it snapped shut, and the boy dropped to the ground, which still had rubble covering it since from Kendra Rose Montagna’s entrance many scenes ago. Tim Allen ran towards his brother, but Kendra Rose Montagna turned and blocked him. She seemed to be larger than normal, almost twice Tim Allen’s height.

“Let me talk to my brother," Tim Allen growled. Kendra Rose Montagna said nothing, her huge bright eyes staring down at the indignant comedian. Tim Allen tried to rush past her, but she picked him up deftly and placed him down onto a piece of rubble next Mr. Pibb, the training dummy.

“This is between him and me," she said, her voice loud and commanding and coming from everywhere at once.

“But we're family," Tim Allen knew that she would kill his brother, he had no doubt about that.

“Believe me. I know what I'm doing," Kendra Rose Montagna replied coolly. Then she turned to face the boy who stood in the rubble.

“I know what I'm doing," she said again, to herself this time, “Yeah. What am I doing?”

Tim Allen yelped. Kendra Rose Montagna looked back over her semi transparent shoulder at him. He was roleplaying with Mr. Pibb, hanging droopily from the dummy’s shoulders.

“Mr. Pibb, Tim Allen's out there all alone," he said, mimicking Dylan, “He needs our help!"

Kendra Rose Montagna knew that Tim Allen wouldn’t stop his childish moping until she let him have what he wanted, like a spoiled child. She thought for a moment. If Tim Allen was this boy’s brother, maybe Larraby hadn’t sent him after all. Either way, Tim Allen could keep this kid busy while she found Larraby, and then it wouldn’t matter whether he was Tim Allen’s brother or Grant’s twentieth boy lover.

“Will you distract Concussion?" she said. Tim Allen grinned, but said nothing.

“Please?” Kendra Rose Montagna said, her voice exasperated. Tim Allen smiled and slid down towards his brother. Kendra Rose Montagna walked off through the walls of the facility. The boy was looking away from Tim Allen, puzzling over the somewhat damaged paintball machine on the far wall. Tim Allen coughed.

“Connor," he said. The boy turned around to face him. It was good that Concussion still remembered his real name.

“My God, it is you," he said, grinning wide. Tim Allen smiled. A real smile. Not a sarcastic grin.

“Connor, it's me, Tim Allen. It's Tim Allen. Nobody wants to fight you. I just want to talk," Tim Allen said. He was so happy that he almost forgot his sarcasm. Almost.

“Wow,” Connor said, “You got old, little brother."

“Yeah," Tim Allen said, his sarcasm coming back a little, “Well, I guess I didn't have the advantage of living large in some dimensional rift where I don't age…”

Connor stopped smiling. His eyes narrowed.

“Living large? Try alone. Conscious only of being betrayed by you in that living hell," he growled. Tim Allen looked hurt.

“Betrayed? You took out the whole team," he said, stepping closer to his brother. Connor lowered his voice.

“You shouldn't have tried to kill me, Tim Allenie," he said quietly. Tim Allen grimaced, partly from being called Tim Allenie, but also from pain, as he had stepped on an upturned nail in the rubble. Connor just smiled and laughed a little. Tim Allen wasn’t the same as when he had left. The two stood silently for a moment. With a huge cracking sound, Tim Allen found himself rocketed back into a wall. Concussion stretched his arms. He hadn't used his powers in so long.

“That was good," he said, rolling his shoulders. Tim Allen peeled himself out of the small crater that his body had made in the wall.

“Boy, that... That smarts," he said, grimacing from pain. His teeth were gritted and his back was bloody and sore, but the blast had been a weak one compared to what Connor was usually capable of.

“Well, you certainly haven't lost your touch, brother," Tim Allen said, limping back towards his brother. Connor frowned, his brother hadn’t dodged his blast.

“Have you lost your powers, Tim Allen?” Concussion asked, the corners of his mouth twisting up into a smile.

“Well…” Tim Allen barely dodged another blast from his brother. He stood, shakily.

“You've got to stop doing that," he said, his voice whining in that way that Connor hated so much. But Connor wasn’t irritated by the drawl of his brother, he was happy. Happy to be out. So happy, in fact, that he had forgotten why he hated his brother so much. He still hated Tim Allen, but the why and how had been long forgotten.

“You have lost your powers, Tim Allen," he said, laughing a little. He stepped closer to Tim Allen, readying another blast.

“Boy. Hey, are those new boots?" he said, hurling another wave at Tim Allen’s feet. Tim Allen barely avoided being knocked over by the blow, regaining his balance somewhat ungracefully.

“When you say lost my powers, I think if I really looked, I could find them," he said, talking more to himself than to his brother. Above them, looking down through the hole that Kendra Rose Montagna had created when she had busted through the roof so long ago, Larraby stood with a platoon of soldiers. He turned to his group and held up a hand.

“This is even better than I expected," he announced. He had Concussion right where he wanted him, and now he had Tim Allen too.

“Load up the sonic net and prepare to fire," he commanded two soldiers to the left. They hurriedly began to charge up a large machine covered in tubes and wires. Down in the training room, Concussion stepped closer to his brother. Tim Allen looked at Connor, and fear rocketed through his body for the first time in three decades.

“This is it, Tim Allen. I've waited 30 years for this," Connor grabbed Tim Allen by the neck and began to raise him up. Tim Allen felt his feet leave the ground. His hands gripped at the one at his neck. He coughed and sputtered, but there was no zenith team to help him this time. Or so he thought. As his vision began to go dark, a crash of metal and plastic and rubble from behind Connor woke him, however slightly, from his oncoming unconsciousness.

“Pibb," said a pre-recorded voice. Connor dropped the almost dead comedian and looked behind him. The old test dummy, his plastic face down in the dirt, gurgled his name one more time from the speaker around his neck.

“Pibb? Wow. They must have really dragged you out of the mothballs, huh?” Connor stooped and rolled the test dummy over, looking at the plastic face and smiling nostalgically. He looked up a pile of rubble to see where Pibb had been thrown from. On top of the pile was, silhouetted by a spotlight, what looked like a 6-year-old in pigtails.

Connor stepped into a fighting stance and turned to Tim Allen, who held up his hands defensively.

“Steady," said Tim Allen, stepping back away from Connor. Connor only looked back up at what he thought was a little girl.

“Well, hope you got an army behind you. Or a tiny girl in pigtails. What is this, ‘Attack of the Preschoolers’?" he asked sarcastically. Tim Allen stepped back farther. Connor wasn’t interested in his cowardly brother now, though. He turned and began to walk towards the silhouette.

“These kids, they don't know what they're doing, Connor. This is between you and me," Tim Allen yelled wheezily. He had said it too late, however, and Cindy’s body propelled itself down the slope of rubble, landing gracefully at the bottom. From behind the rubble pile, Lard-Butt and Summer walked out. Connor looked disdainfully at the group. One of them looked like they were rotting, and they all had this deadeyed expression on their face.

“So this is the new team, huh?" he said, unimpressed. Tim Allen stumbled quickly between his brother and the corpse. He turned to the rotting girl and sighed.

“Cindy, go back," he said, exasperated. Cindy just stared at him with lifeless, unblinking eyes. Connor laughed.

“You just run up to the big bad guy all willy-nilly now? Is that how it goes?” Connor grinned and charged up a huge blast. Somewhere above them, a hearty laugh echoed.

“Fire," yelled Larraby, and a large net blasted down towards the group below.

“Cindy, run," Tim Allen called, but it was too late. The corpse was hit hard by the net, which stuck her to the ground. Tim Allen rushed forward. From the training room entrance, Dylan and Skinbo appeared, yelling at Tim Allen.

“No, no! Timallen!” Dylan screamed, but Tim Allen had already wrapped his arms lovingly around the corpse.

“Cindy, are you okay? Cindy, you're safe now. You're okay. It's me. It's Tim Allen," Cindy didn’t respond. Her grey flesh rippled and distorted, like a bedsheet with rats under it. Her arms began to spasm, flailing jerkily under the sonic net.

“Please, Cindy, don't do this to me. You're all right. Come on, Princess," Tim Allen moaned. Cindy stopped spasming, cocked her head, and rose up into the air, held aloft by a huge fleshy tentacle.

“Princess?” she gurgled, “That's me."

After Tim Allen had left to confront Connor, Dylan didn’t have much to do. Cindy sat playing with her fingers, happy to finally be in control of her body again. Dylan didn’t have anyone to talk to. Skinbo was busy, Michael Anthony was doing his job, and Tim Allen was confronting a demon from his past. He couldn’t talk to Summer or Lard-Butt who were lost somewhere in the facility. That was what he was thinking when huge tentacles of flesh burst through a side door to the hanger. The largest of the tentacles was covered in faces, each one with their mouths open wide, snapping at isolation guards as they passed. Dylan scrambled to his feet and made a dash for the large hanger entrance, but was stopped by Skinbo. He had his broadsword drawn and his thin facial features were tight in a grimace. Dylan thought for a moment that Skinbo was going to cut him in half, but the blow never came. Skinbo nodded his head in the direction of the path that Tim Allen had taken into the facility. The two of them ran madly for the exit, but Dylan snuck a look back at the carnage. A huge fleshy mass was pulsating on the far end of the room, squeezing itself out of the facility door. Holloway’s huge grin slid across the mass fluidly, followed by a collection of other faces, including Lard-Butt and Summer. Their faces looked like they had melted a bit, although Lard-Butt was somewhat fresh. Michael Anthony still stood in the center of the room, directing his guards where to fire. Dylan looked over to the corner where he had been sitting. A tentacle struggled to pick up Cindy Collins, but slowly dragged her back to Holloway, where a mouth in her side opened and Cindy Collins was swallowed whole. Then Skinbo shut the door and the two were off into the facility.

Michael Anthony gets AIDS and dies.

Holloway’s huge face towered over Tim Allen, tendrils whipping and grey skin stretching and contracting. Around her huge body were hundreds of faces, melted and distorted, shifting and murmuring, all seeming to slide across her skin with a strange, grotesque grace. A huge tentacle rose above the rest, hanging in the air for only a moment, before crashing down towards Tim Allen in a sweeping motion. Before he could think, Tim Allen was up on his feet, sarcastic comments streaming from his mouth. To Skinbo and Dylan, it looked like he had teleported to the top of a pile of rubble before the tendril slammed into the ground. Tim Allen’s face curled into a grin, smarmy power coursing behind his eyes. Connor took a step back. He had expected his brother to have been at least a little weakened by age.

“Mr. Tim Allen, you moved so fast,” Holloway boomed. Tim Allen smiled humbly.

“Yes, I did," he cocked his head towards the huge mass of flesh.

“I knew it,” came a cry from the roof, “I knew you hadn't lost your powers.”

Tim Allen looked up towards Larraby, smiling.

“Guess I just needed a reason to use them,” he said. Another tentacle swiped at him, but he dodged in the blink of an eye again, then shot off into the facility, snatching Dylan and Skinbo into his arms as he ran.

Larraby pulled back from the edge of the hole that they were watching from. Conner blasted himself up and landed gracefully on the roof of the facility. In his hand, he held the net that had been fired at him. He looked at the general. Larraby had aged, his head was bald now, and yet that disapproving look hadn’t changed one bit.

“Is that it? Is that all you got?” he said, tossing the net back down into the training room. Larraby stood in front of the squad as they fumbled with equipment. The technicians were frantically looking for something, but Larraby didn't notice, and if he did, he didn't care.

“Not by a long shot, sonny-boy,” he replied, and turned to the machine that the technicians were huddled around. He pushed between two to get at the control panel.

“Stand back,” he said, pushing away an exasperated tech.

“No, no, no,” said the tech under his breath, trying to get at the machine. Larraby pulled the pistol that he kept in his pocket out and pointed it at the tech.

“Everybody, get back. Load up the second net and prepare to fire,” he commanded two other technicians at gunpoint. They shifted nervously under the barrel of the weapon. Connor smirked and watched with interest.

“That's a fantastic idea, sir,” one of the technicians mumbled, “I wish we had a second net.”

Larraby's eyes widened, and he slammed his fist into the machine in anger.

“Why, you fumbling, bumbling bozo,” he said, cursing Grant under his breath. Where was that idiot scientist anyway?

Tim Allen carried Dylan and Skinbo quickly through the hallways of the now dilapidated facility. Somewhere behind them, Holloway slithered through the halls, propelled along the tentacles that ran through the entirety of the facility like a monorail train made of flesh. Holloway was fast, but Tim Allen was faster. After a minute of running through the dark, slimy facility, Tim Allen finally stopped in front of a large metal door. He dropped the two behind him and bent down to open it. Skinbo peeked underneath the door, and caught glimpses of yellow matte metal. Tim Allen rolled the door up and revealed the bright yellow power suit. He jumped up into the mount and strapped himself into the machine. Although it was old, it reacted well to Tim Allen's speedy movements. The suit was incredibly flexible because of the way that it's plating was layered like fish scales. Tim Allen, now somewhat taller that Dylan and Skinbo, looked down at them and smiled.

“Okay, all right. You guys wait right here. I'll be back in a second, give or take,” he said, winking. Before Dylan could protest, Tim Allen ripped down the hallway and was out of sight. Tim Allen hadn't felt so alive since he had had his powers.

“Just like riding a bike,” he said, noticing that his skill was just about the same, even in his old age.

The bodies of Larraby's crew lay strewn across the roof, missing limbs and blood covering every inch of the concrete area. The sonic net gun had been smashed beyond recognition, but it still acted as a good cover. Connor looked around the battlefield.

“Is that it? Is there anyone else who can face me?” he asked, smiling widely. Larraby stood up from behind the machine, blood ebbing from a wound in his side, pistol gripped by white knuckles. He grimaced against the pain, he had felt worse with Grant. Or, at least, that was what he told himself.

“I'm still standing here, you little twerp,” he growled. The last living tech in Area 52 tapped the general on his leg.

“Sir, I wouldn't do that,” he whispered harshly, but the general paid no attention. He was listening to something else, a noise coming from the training room.

“What's that sound?” he asked, and Connor turned. From the hole, a yellow blur flew up into the air, arcing high over Connor, and landed gracefully a few paces from him.

“Hey, it's…” the technician was cut off.

“Tim Allenie,” Connor said, his smile widening even more.

“Actually,” replied the man in the suit, “it's Timallen.”

Larraby was almost too impressed to be angry with Tim Allen for not activating his powers sooner.

“Suit looks good,” he called, and Tim Allen nodded.

“Nice suit, lizard-boy,” Connor said, putting his hands on his sides and smiling at the comedian in the yellow suit. Tim Allen's mind was going a mile a minute. Could he convince his brother not to fight? Would he have to try another vortex? Connor broke his train of thought.

“Let's play ball,” he said, and leapt high into the air. The comedian jumped and matched him, catching him in mid air and slamming him into the ground. Connor blasted his adversary off of him, and Tim Allen landed some feet away. Tim Allen stood, his suit having taken most of the damage. Connor was a little less fortunate. He propelled himself off the ground with a blast and readied himself for more fighting, but he was bleeding and limping. He charged up a bombardment of energy and ran towards Tim Allen, releasing the explosion into his brother’s stomach and sending him flying. Tim Allen skidded across the ground, yellow scales flaking off his armor. It was Tim Allen’s turn to stand shakily now. Connor charged up another blast, and Tim Allen readied himself for another rush. Tim Allen stepped first, faked left, and bounded into the air. Connor fell for the fake and sent a wave of energy at where Tim Allen had been a moment before. He noticed too late and tried to avoid his brother, but the speed of sarcasm is simply too fast. Connor slammed into the ground, his arm breaking his fall and shattering as it made contact with the concrete roof. Connor lay for a moment, then groaned and rolled over. Tim Allen stood over him, his suit stained red and missing pieces all over.

“Timallen. Hey,” he said.

“Hey, Connor, you kind of suck at this, don't you, dude?” Tim Allen responded. Connor smiled and stood, one arm hanging limp at his side. Tim Allen stepped toward his brother, expecting that the fight was over. Instead, Connor blasted him once more and turned back towards the hole in the facility. Before Tim Allen could stand back up, Connor was gone.

Tim Allen slid down a pile of rubble and stopped in the doorway to the training room one last time. He wouldn’t be here again. Larraby was looking for Grant somewhere in the facility, Connor was escaping, Dylan was with Skinbo near the armory, and Holloway was god knows where. Tim Allen decided to head to the armory to pick up the two, then see if Kendra Rose Montagna would take them out of the facility. Once they were safe, he could deal with his brother, Larraby, and Holloway without worrying about them. Tim Allen ran through the facility at his top speed, and nearly fell into a huge crater in the middle of the facility. A huge, purple vortex was hissing and crackling with energy sat in the air above the enormous crater. An extremely fast wind roared past the hole in the hallway, whipped up into a terrible fervor by the portal in the center. Every few seconds, a chunk of the facility would go flying into it at an insane speed. Tim Allen looked at the vortex for a moment, trying to understand what it was. It must have been something Connor created. It didn’t seem like it had swallowed the armoury, so Dylan and Skinbo were probably still alive. From across the crater, a huge explosion shot debris off into the air. Holloway’s huge flesh body burst from the facility and clambered along the side of the crater, huge sharp spider like legs made of bone gripping the ground tightly. It seemed like she was chasing something, and Tim Allen squinted at the tiny shape that shot around beneath the abomination. Connor propelled himself across the crater, trying to find a loose bit of ground that he could use to trip up Holloway. He hurled another blast to his left and shot up the wall of the crater, narrowly avoiding the huge bone legs of the psychologist. Connor looked up at the facility as he flew through the air, charging another blast to send him barreling towards the portal in the center of the crater. Before he released the blast, however, something caught his eye. As he skimmed carefully across the wall of the crater, his eyes caught his brothers, looking back at him from a hallway in the facility. He shot his blast late, and wobbled dangerously, skirting the edge of his careful orbit around the vortex. Tim Allen gasped. His brother flailed in the air for a moment, desperately shooting himself towards the portal. Tim Allen put his hands over his eyes.

“Oh, no. He's going to miss,” he said under his breath. Connor barely managed to steady his course around the vortex, and Holloway snapped at his heels with her huge tentacles. Tim Allen was so enamoured with the scene before him that he didn’t hear Kendra Rose Montagna approach behind him. Then again, it’s not like she makes any sounds while walking, since she just hovers an inch off the ground. She put a hand on his shoulder.

“Timallen,” she said loudly so as to be heard over the wind. Tim Allen whipped around, but when he saw that it was her, he smiled. Kendra Rose Montagna was confused. Tim Allen was an asshole, wasn’t he? Kendra Rose Montagna disregarded the thought and began to advance towards the portal and his brother. Tim Allen maintained eye contact.

“We have a chance to save him,” he yelled. He couldn’t lose his brother a second time. It was his fault before, and this was his only chance to make it right. Kendra Rose Montagna, however, had a different plan. That vortex must be patched by something powerful, like someone with powers, or an ethereal being, otherwise it could destroy the world. Something had to close the portal, and that something would probably be Connor. She didn’t want to tell him to push his brother into the vortex, but she couldn’t see any better alternatives. She finally decided on letting Tim Allen catch Connor and attacking Holloway on her own.

“You must close the vortex,” she told him, before turning quickly into the facility. Tim Allen looked after her, contemplating his next move. Behind him, the vortex roared and ripped at the facility. She was right, and a little bit of Tim Allen still resented that. Something had to plug that hole. Tim Allen turned back to where his brother was locked in mortal combat. He stepped out of the safety of the facility and into the maelstrom, speeding down the side of the huge crater towards his brother. Holloway, noticing the movement via a cluster of faces on a tentacle protruding from her right side, scrambled to a halt and brought down several tendrils to block the comedian from reaching his brother. Tim Allen, invigorated by his new abilities, dodged the attack deftly, slipping between tentacles and weaving down the wall of the crater.

“Must save Connor,” he whispered under his breath as he ducked under one of Holloway’s appendages. Connor looked over his shoulder at the yellow streak that zigzagged skillfully across the devastation towards him. Connor blasted himself up and over the vortex to get a better vantage point while Holloway was distracted. Unfortunately, Holloway is never distracted. As he arked high above the destruction, a mass of flesh, blurred by speed, sailed up and intercepted him at his apex. The two hung in the air for a moment, like a pair of christmas tree ornaments that you throw out after having them up for one year because you know that they suck, but your grandma gave them to you and you have to put them up when she’s there, but you know that she will forget after a year anyways. Then, with a force that nearly tore him in two, the tentacle ripped Connor back down towards the ground. Tim Allen scrambled up the side of the crater, jumping from the edge and landing on Holloway’s back. He clung to her rough hide and scaled her like a mountain, gripping lumps and tentacles tightly. Connor crashed into Holloway’s flesh with a plop, and Tim Allen rushed towards him as he began to sink into her huge, dull grey body. He ran forward, gripping his brother’s arm and planting his feet, preparing to pull him out.

“No! Connor!” he screamed, trying to pull his brother from Holloway’s flesh. Although he tried his best to pull his brother from the meat, Connor sunk further into the monster. Bits of Holloway tried their best to get hold of Tim Allen as he pulled, but the power suit stopped them from finding his flesh. Tim Allen pulled harder, until Connor thought that he would pull his arm clean off. Then he stopped. Connor looked Tim Allen, his face contorted to hold back tears. Tim Allen pleaded with his brother to try and free himself from the huge woman.

“Connor, the vortex worked this time. Maybe you can use your powers for good,” he sputtered, but Connor only shook his head.

“I'm sorry, Tim Allen,” he said slowly, his breathing labored under the weight of so many bodies. Tears rolled down Tim Allen’s cheeks as he put his arms out to his brother.

“Give your little brother a hug. Come on,” he said, holding Connor’s shoulders as he sunk yet deeper. Tim Allen didn’t know what was going to happen next, and he didn’t really care. Connor craned his neck up to Tim Allen’s ear.

“Yeah. I got my brother back,” he whispered, his voice pained and raspy. Then he did something unexpected. Before he slipped down fully into the folds of fat and muscle that made up Holloway’s body, he summoned all the strength within him and channeled it into one last blast wave. Tim Allen flew up into the air, flipping over and over. After a few seconds, he hit the ground.

Holloway could feel Connor give in. It felt good, like how vaccines always felt to her. She could feel him slip into her and disperse like a drop of dye in a still glass of water, spreading in a cloud out to the farthest reaches of her being. His added mass was good and strong.

“We did it. Now that's what I call teamwork,” she chuckled to herself. Her wide mouth grinned and her long tongue passed over her thin lips.

“This is Connor,” replied a voice. How could there be a reply? Holloway shivered, clambering her massive form up onto the roof of the facility. Behind her, the vortex still raged. She looked around across her huge person for Connor’s face, twisting and contorting in her search.

“This is,” called another voice from somewhere else on her massive body. Holloway relaxed a little, letting out a long sigh and laying her huge body down onto the roof of the facility. She had expected something like this to happen, and she had been preparing for it.

“Dylan! Come on!” called Summer’s voice. The many consciousnesses Holloway had consumed were making a resurgence, remembering old names and faces, and if she could hold them in her, she should be able to keep anything down.

“Welcome to the family, brother,” she gurgled happily, “This is Marsha.”

“Nice to meet you,” Summer replied.

“You, too,” Holloway gulped. All that talk about how the kids were like a family had really made it easy for her to convince the half conscious children not to rebel as their minds were digested inside her.

“Hi. What's your name?”

“Cindy. Cindy.”

“Hey. Summer.”

“I'm Tucker. How's it going?”

“Tucker, hi.”

The voices murmured among themselves for a few moments. Slowly, one by one, they were digested. After three minutes, all was quiet. There were no voices ebbing up from her bowels. There were no faces along her back and appendages. There was only Holloway.

Dylan finished hot-wiring the Jeep and nearly hit his head on the steering wheel. Skinbo stood, hand on the Jeep's door, watching Dylan as he rubbed the back of his head. Kendra Rose Montagna sat silently in the back seat. She hadn't said much since she had shown up, only directing Skinbo and Dylan to one of the few intact hangers. Dylan sat back in the Jeep’s front seat and turned so that he faced Skinbo and Kendra Rose Montagna.

“Somebody's going to have to drive on the way back. We've got the…” before he could finish, Skinbo pulled him aside.

“Can I? Can I drive?” he asked excitedly. Dylan shook his head.

“Can she drive?” he asked the gas station attendant. Skinbo frowned. He had been really excited to drive again, but it would have to wait for some other time.

“Yeah, she can drive,” Skinbo finally said dejectedly. Dylan patted him on the back and turned back to continue his little speech. When he turned, however, Kendra Rose Montagna was gone.

Tim Allen knew exactly what he needed to do. He sped down the halls at a steady pace, knowing that Holloway would be hot on his heels. Hopefully the remnants of the Zenith Team could handle her without him.

“We got the FE-12 running again,” he said to some image of Connor in his mind. Connor smiled within Tim Allen's head.

“Remember the old saucer from back then? Oh, yeah,” he said to his imagined brother. He stopped just short of the door to the hanger where the rest of the survivors had been. Cautiously, he opened the door and looked inside. The carnage that Holloway had brought down in here was terrifying. Blood stained the concrete and bullet holes riddled the walls. Tim Allen covered his mouth with his hands for a moment, realizing the full implications of what her attack had wrought. Everyone was dead. Tim Allen sank to his knees. Perhaps that hardness of his heart had a purpose. A day before this, he would have met the room filled with death with indifference, but not today. Today, it filled him with dread. The kind of dread that you know your world is falling apart and you can't stop it. Tim Allen knelt on the ground, his mind blank. A voice behind him nearly gave him a heart attack.

“Where is it? Out there? Oh, yeah,” Connor said, his voice isolated in the world. Tim Allen stood to face his brother. Connor was there, looking out towards the Area 52 tarmac with an odd, melancholy smile, towards the huge saucer which was still filled with dangerous artifacts and forbidden technology. Technology that had made his brother a monster. Technology that had created Holloway. Tim Allen remembered what he needed to do. He walked briskly and resolutely towards the ship. Dylan and Skinbo would have to defeat Holloway alone, once he was gone. He had faith in them. As he walked up the ramp leading into the ship, a voice behind him made him stop.

“Hold it, Timallen,” Kendra Rose Montagna said loudly. Tim Allen turned to face her. He really wasn't in the mood to deal with her. Besides, he was doing what she had wanted him to do, anyways.

“What?” He snapped. All that death had put him in a bad mood.

“What are you going to do now?” She asked him. He smiled slyly.

“You know us heroes. We always do the right thing,” he said, then closed the ramp and walked into the ship. Kendra Rose Montagna watched as the ship rose up into the air, hovered for a moment in the air above her, then shuddered into movement towards the center of the facility. Tim Allen stood, hand in the bucket, eyes locked on the pulsing purple whirlwind in the middle of the huge facility. All these arcane and dangerous artifacts would plug up an interdimensional wormhole perfectly. Connor sat against the wall, watching his brother, still smiling that strange, sad smile that Tim Allen's mind conjured up. Tim Allen gritted his teeth as the pull of the portal began to change the way the ship flew. With a terrible crunch, Tim Allen, a figment of his imagination, and several hundred billions of dollars worth of government secrets plugged up the first hole in time and space in decades. The resulting shockwave was felt in New York, although you could have missed it if you weren't paying attention.

Skinbo fired up the Jeep. Kendra Rose Montagna could handle herself on her own, but the gas station attendant and the doll were far more mortal. Whatever that huge explosion was, Skinbo and Dylan certainly weren't about to stick around and find out. Dylan looked back at the facility as Skinbo whipped down the runway towards the gate. Hopefully Kendra Rose Montagna wasn't hurt by that blast. She couldn't have been, right?

The blue light from the monitors glinted off Grant's lifeless body. Larraby knelt beside him, gripping at the scientist’s arms, his head against the scientist’s chest. He paid no attention when the entire building shook violently.

“Come on, Grant. We got work to do,” he whispered. He was desperately trying to believe that Grant was alive. Holloway slid silently into the room, her massive face illuminated by the blue glow of the screens. Larraby didn't turn.

“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair,” he mumbled to his lover. Holloway was not impressed by his knowledge of fairy tales.

“It's Princess Rapunzel,” she corrected. Larraby still did not turn.

“Whatever,” he said in a low voice. Then he leaned over and kissed Grant gently on the forehead.

“Whoa,” said Holloway.

“My prince,” Larraby whispered, then stood and turned to face Holloway. He was not an evil man, though he had done evil things. Sometimes, what must be done must be done. But, here he was, everything that he had worked towards lying in a bloody pool on the ground. The evil that was to destroy the world was not a mistake from his lovers past, not the radiation that had nearly been used on children, not even a portal to another dimension. It was a wrinkled raisin of a woman in a green dress, who everyone had disregarded, cast aside, forgot, and ignored. Larraby's final evil was not the way he had planned to use children, or what he had done to Kendra Rose Montagna's brother. It was letting Holloway into his facility, under his nose, sitting next to her in a helicopter and not shooting her right then and there.

“That's my Princess,” he said. Holloway opened her mouth and a man who was not evil, but did evil things, was put to an end. There were only four people left on facility grounds.

Kendra Rose Montagna watched as a massive mushroom cloud rose slowly from the center of the facility. The ground beneath her ethereal form shook, but she didn't feel it. The smoke and dust hung in the air like an enormous tree, dark on the horizon. From a hole in the facility, Kendra Rose Montagna spotted a large form emerging from the rubble. She lowered herself down from her place in the air, preparing for a fight. She would have to use all her energy to defeat Holloway, and even then, she wasn't sure if she could. If she didn't, Area 52 would be nuked to oblivion before anyone could escape. Then again, they may still nuke it even if Holloway went down. Even still, there was a chance that Dylan and Skinbo could be saved from death. Kendra Rose Montagna landed on the ground and began to advance on the huge figure. Holloway struggled to get the last of her massive form out of the hole. As she finally pulled the last of herself free, she turned and saw a twinkle of blue light. A blast of invisible force slammed into her and she toppled back onto the facility. Her body shivered and pulsed, legs and arms twisting and reaching. She straightened herself out and shot out an enormous spear-like limb. Kendra Rose Montagna stepped lightly to the side as the limb buried itself in the ground. She threw another barrage of energy at the limb and it snapped halfway to Holloway, who screeched and scrambled towards Kendra Rose Montagna. Holloway bounded towards the girl, who was miniscule in comparison to the Akira rip-off. Kendra Rose Montagna shot off into the air above the monster, wind whipping at her hair. All the energy that she was using was making her more physical. Yet she fought on. She closed her eyes and gathered energy in her hands. She could feel her fingertips tingle as they began to become physical objects.

“Ready,” she whispered, reaching the top of her arc into the air. Then she plummeted down towards the ground and the huge monster. With a sickening crunch, Kendra Rose Montagna ripped through the flesh and bone of hundreds of bodies, searing each one with red hot energy. After a second of burrowing a hole through Holloway, Kendra Rose Montagna shot out of the other side of the enormous woman. Holloway screamed as her insides were set on fire from the blast. She rolled away from the girl made of light energy, clutching at her wound with huge boney hands.

“Go, red! Go, white! Go, red,” she mumbled as her flesh burnt, turning from red, to burnt black, to ashen white. Painfully, she stood again and rushed towards Kendra Rose Montagna, who lept into the air in response.

Skinbo ripped around the corner. In the distance, he could see a fight. He adjusted his sword in its sling on his back and put a hand on his pocket, feeling the familiar lump of wet dough that was the Limp Bizkit. He had learned that he would have to carry it to keep Lard-Butt from accidentally eating it. Dylan leaned over Skinbo's shoulder, looking at the fight ahead of them. He could see Holloway, large and lumbering, as well as a streak of light, whizzing around in the air above her, looping high in the air and dive-bombing the enraged Holloway. As they neared, they realized who it was.

“Fight! Fight! Fight!” screamed Dylan at the top of his lungs. In the past few days, he had come to understand and appreciate Kendra Rose Montagna as a person. She swooped high again and shot down through the beast for the third time.

She was near her limit. Holloway was weakening, that she could tell, but she didn't know for how much longer she could keep it up. Her hands were regaining their color, and skin was beginning to spread up her arms. She was losing her powers. She swooped up again. It was all or nothing. She charged another blast, but this time, she let herself fall slowly. She held the energy until she couldn't hold it any more, then put it inside her. She felt the warm rush of heat that she had felt all those years ago when she had first gotten her powers, trying to reach that creek. Then she gathered more. She could feel her whole body beginning to shake. She directed her flight down just in front of Holloway. She could feel the energy radiating out of her body. Just before she was about to explode, something caught her ear, and she looked behind her. There, in a stolen Jeep, yelling encouragements barely heard over the wind that whipped around her, were Dylan and Skinbo. She turned to face them, to warn them to run away, to escape, but it was too late. She felt the energy well up inside her, she felt her body slowly ripping apart. She also felt a long, boney limb shoot through her stomach and twist away through the air. She looked down at the long appendage from which she now hung. Her torso, now fully physical, felt like it was on fire. With a sickening slurp, Holloway pulled the tendril out of Kendra Rose Montagna's body. She fell to the ground, hand clutched over her wound, the world fading before her eyes. Then, everything was dark and cold and still.

Dylan vaulted out of the back seat. He ran towards Kendra Rose Montagna's body, dodging the whipping tentacles and limbs of Holloway. He skidded to a halt beside her now physical form. Thinking quickly, he reached into himself and brought out dry newspaper. He hurriedly blocked the hole in her stomach with the paper and some spiders before picking her up. He ran, this time more slowly and carefully, back to the Jeep. Skinbo whipped the vehicle around and revved the engine. Dylan heaved the wounded girl into the back and sat himself down in the passenger's seat. Holloway roared behind them and Skinbo stepped on the gas. Holloway scrambled to keep up with the Jeep as it zigzagged out across the tarmac. Dylan climbed into the back seat and pulled out a medkit. The limb had gone through Kendra Rose Montagna's side, not hitting any vital organs, barely missing some very important ones, though. Dylan tried his best to stop the bleeding with medical supplies and spiders, but Kendra Rose Montagna needed more than a field kit, and fast. Fortunately for her, there just happened to be a fully functional ambulance on the premises, right next to the helicopter landing spaces. If they could shake or distract Holloway, then they might have a chance. Dylan looked back at the incoming horror and crawled to the back of the Jeep. Before Skinbo could ask what he was doing, Dylan jumped from the vehicle and tumbled along the ground for a few feet. Skinbo knew he couldn't turn back to get him, but he swung the Jeep around anyway. Dylan shakily stood, bits of paper mache falling off his wet body. Holloway skidded to a halt and grinned with every mouth on her body. Dylan looked back at his friends in the Jeep and smiled as best he could, since his face was a little destroyed from the fall. Then he turned back to face the enormous woman before him. Holloway towered over the paper mache boy, grin wide across her face. Skinbo revved the engine and skidded away towards where he knew the ambulance would be. As much as he hated leaving Dylan to that monster, Kendra Rose Montagna was dying, and every second that he spent feeling sorry for his friend was more lost blood from her now physical form. As he sped off towards the helipads, he snuck one last look back at his friend. Dylan was enveloped in a writhing black mass which was propelling him upward to be level with Holloway. As he looked back towards the boy, he realized an inherent truth about Dylan. Dylan didn’t just like spiders. Dylan **WAS** spiders.

Dylan’s true form exploded out of him. Millions of spiders wriggled and squirmed their way between the wet newspaper strips of his body. Having the ability to generate infinite spiders wasn’t often useful, but now would be as good a time as any to take advantage. Holloway’s grin faded. She shuddered, fleshy tentacles sliding across her wrinkled body. Dylan lifted a mass of spiders and brought it down across Holloway’s face, it’s weight bashing a sizable dent in her skull. Holloway shivered again, and what must have been more than one hundred tentacles sprang forth from her face and head. The tendrils slashed into the mass of spiders, severating and searching and eating. Dylan could feel his body cut into segments by the tentacles. Holloway scrambled her many legs and drew her closer in towards Dylan. She opened her maw and inhaled an immense clump of spiders from Dylan’s torso. Dylan heaved a huge fist made of spiders into the air and brought it down on the scientist. She barely flinched, only eating more spiders with each twist of her disgusting body. Dylan’s spiders ripped and tore and spread across Holloway’s back like a living carpet. Holloway’s tentacles simply wiped at them lazily and drew them towards mouths that opened up along her spine. From a distance, the fight would have looked like a deflated pink rubber ball covered in black liquid. Holloway gulped and wiped and drew evermore spiders into her body. Dylan fought desperately to injure her, but to no avail. Slowly, every spider he generated was eaten by the many mouths.

Skinbo lifted Kendra Rose Montagna onto the stretcher and loaded her into the ambulance. It had been cleaned since the last time he had been in it, the blood washed from the walls, left a pristine silver white. Skinbo removed bandages from a box on the wall and wrapped them around Kendra Rose Montagna’s waist. She had lost a lot of blood, and was quite out of it. Skinbo desperately tried to remember what Grant had done with Tim Allen when they had been in a similar situation. He grabbed a needle and bottle of adrenaline and, with shaking hands, drew the clear liquid into the syringe. He took a deep breath and rolled up Kendra Rose Montagna’s sleeve. He wiped down a spot on her arm with an alcohol swab and put the needle into her arm. After he had removed the needle, he put it on a table beside the stretcher and looked for a blood bag. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and set up the blood transfusion with a spare bag of O Negative blood. She was breathing, the wound wasn’t bleeding as much as it had been, and she had a steady amount of blood going into her. Should he cauterize the wound? Maybe. What was something else? Clotting agent! This was an army base! Surely there would be some clotting agent in that field kit in the Jeep! Skinbo jumped out of the back of the ambulance and jogged to the Jeep. Dylan may not be able to hold Holloway, so he should probably hurry. Skinbo riffled through the field kit, removed the spongy military-grade CLOTOX package, and turned to go back to the ambulance. As he turned, a shadow fell over the airfield. Skinbo’s hand went to the hilt of his broadsword and slowly, deliberately, turned to face the source of the shadow. Towering high above him, mottled black and pink from a mix of spiders and human flesh, a mammoth shape obscured the sun, grinning down onto the gas station attendant. There were three people left living in the facility. Skinbo dropped the package of clotting agent and drew his broadsword slowly. Holloway’s awful mouth opened as he drew his weapon, curling at the ends into a perverse imitation of a smile. Her teeth were long and white as ever, though there were now many rows extending down her throat. Skinbo very carefully removed a handful of baked dough from his pocket and tied it to his sword with a roll of gauze. Holloway only smiled ever wider. Skinbo smiled too and, gripping his sword in both hands, charged at the terrible beast before him. Her tendrils extended again, reaching down towards him. He swung at one, severing it from the host. Another swept behind him and knocked his legs out from under him. He gripped his sword tight and tried to stand, but another limb shot out and snatched his ankle. He was pulled up into the air by the fleshy appendage, held upside down and drawn level with the awful, terrible mouth of the beast. Skinbo clutched at his sword, grasping its handle in one hand. A tentacle slithered through the air and took the sword from its owner. This spiteful tentacle tossed the sword into the back of the throat of the beast, which accepted the weapon with a happy rumble. The limb which held Skinbo then drew itself towards this gaping maw, towards the abyss which sought to consume the world. Towards the most ambitious vorarephile in the world. Then she twitched. Her grin faltered, and her body listed to one side like a boat in a storm. Her tentacles lowered to the ground, and her body was lifted to the heavens. Skinbo slipped his leg out from the tentacle which had held him and watched in awe as Holloway levitated above the ground. From her body, light began to shine through and escape. It burst forth like spotlights from her mouths, eyes, wounds, and other orifices which covered her body. The light shone brighter and brighter until Skinbo could barely watch. He had to shut his eyes and turn away from the brilliant light which shone out across the airfield. A wave of heat and Nu Metal swept over Skinbo as the beast was torn apart by the Limp Bizkit that had been crudely attached to a broadsword. Skinbo could smell burn flesh and hair and could feel his body vibrate from the energy radiating out from the destruction of such a large being. And like that, it was over. The light faded and became nothing. The broadsword fell at Skinbo’s feet with a flash and a clatter, and then the airfield was silent. A thin desert wind blew over the empty plane. Skinbo picked up the broadsword and replaced it in its sheath. Without a word, he walked back to the ambulance, picked up the CLOTOX, and went to patch up Kendra Rose Montagna.

It is now ten years after Area 52 was destroyed. Skinbo's book, _Zoom: Academy for Superheroes,_ has just become popular enough to warrant a movie adaptation. It stars George Clooney as Tim Allen, Tom Hanks as Dylan, and is directed by Wes Anderson. Kendra Rose Montagna has begun her career as a world famous actor, and plays herself in the film. Skinbo, when asked in an interview with FOX News about how he felt about the deaths of Tim Allen and the rest of the Zenith Team, responds, “And so, Timallen was reunited with his brother and a new Zenith team. But they were more than a team. They were a family.”

Kendra Rose Montagna's house, though quite nice, is filled with cobwebs from a massive spider infestation that she refuses to clean out.


End file.
